A new study published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]) finds that individuals with diabetes are significantly more likely to be hospitalised and have a greater risk of dying from infections, and this elevated risk is more pronounced in younger adults with diabetes.

The research was conducted by Dr Michael Fang and colleagues at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Diabetes is widely thought to increase an individual’s susceptibility to infection by reducing the effectiveness of the body’s immune response. Consistent with this hypothesis, there is an increased likelihood of both common and rare infections in people with diabetes, and more recently the disease has emerged as an important risk factor for adverse outcomes in cases of COVID-19.

The authors conclude that infection prevention and management has become especially important due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the general trend of rising rates of hospitalisation due to infection: two factors which have both disproportionately impacted individuals with diabetes.