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A New Model Reveals the Relationship Between Fasting Blood Sugar and COVID-19 Morbidity

According to research from a Kuwaiti study team, high blood sugar levels may be a predictor of COVID-19 severity. 


A recent study utilizing a new statistical modelling approach links fasting blood glucose in COVID-19 patients to coronavirus severity and the chance of being hospitalized to the critical care unit. Patients are often categorized into three groups depending on their fasting blood sugar levels, according to the American Diabetes Association: non-diabetic, prediabetic, and diabetic, which is both clinically and statistically handy. "If you have this value clinically, you belong to this category," Hamad Ali of Kuwait University's Health Sciences Center explained. "Your care will rely on the three categories, such as modifying your diet or taking an antidiabetic medicine."



"Statistically, we've been using these classifications, or the dichotomy of diabetic vs nondiabetic, to pose questions like, 'What is the chance of severe COVID if you fall into either category?' While scientists find this information, or dichotomy, intuitive and easy to grasp, it comes with "many strong assumptions that are not practical and often biologically untenable," according to Ali. For example, a slight change in fasting blood glucose level readings—as little as 0.1 mmol/L—could put a patient in a new group, with a distinct set of risks and treatment options. Instead, Ali and his colleagues chose to test for fasting blood glucose as a COVID-19 predictor using a different modelling strategy.


"We [decided to] model data from diabetes patients in Kuwait to follow disease progression more flexibly and let biology define the form of the association," Ali explained. The researchers arrived at an interesting—and rather enlightening—"dose-response" relationship, "without under- or over-fitting the data," according to Ali, using statistical techniques known as smoothing and penalised splines, which follow the data rather than the investigator's prior assumptions about the patients or where they fall along the diabetes spectrum. "The findings and graphs reveal that the probability of severe COVID rises steeply linearly with each unit increase in fasting blood glucose."


In other words, their statistical model revealed that even a minor rise in a patient's fasting blood sugar level outside of the normal range was linked to a significant increase in the likelihood of ICU admission if they were infected with COVID-19. "This supports stringent glucose management upon admission and ongoing aggressive glucose control without being pushed into one of the three diabetes categories," Ali explained. Finally, Ali claims that peers may use this statistical modelling technique to assess disease development using a variety of characteristics other than blood glucose; predictors like as age, BMI, waist size, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure can all be included.


In other words, their statistical model revealed that even a minor rise in a patient's fasting blood sugar level outside of the normal range was linked to a significant increase in the likelihood of ICU admission if they were infected with COVID-19. "This supports stringent glucose management upon admission and ongoing aggressive glucose control without being pushed into one of the three diabetes categories," Ali explained. Finally, Ali claims that peers may use this statistical modelling technique to assess disease development using a variety of characteristics other than blood glucose; predictors like as age, BMI, waist size, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure can all be included.

Read more about the diabetes researches conducted by the best diabetologists in Kuwait : قيس الامانة العامة لمجلس الوزراء البنك التجاري الكويتي Diabetes symptoms Almulla group Dasma health center

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