Decreased Immunity in Diabetes Patients Heightens Risks of (CA) SAB
HealthDay News — Patients with diabetes may be significantly more likely to develop community-acquired Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (CA-SAB) than those without diabetes, according to a study published online March 10 in the European Journal of Endocrinology.
For the study, researchers tracked the medical records of 30 000 individuals in Denmark over 12 years. Overall, they found that patients with any form of diabetes were almost three times more likely to develop CA-SAB, compared to those without diabetes. The risk rose to more than 7 times higher among patients with type 1 diabetes, and almost 3 times higher for those with type 2 diabetes.
The researchers also found that the combination of diabetes and related kidney involvement raised the odds for CA-SAB by more than 4 fold, compared to individuals without these conditions. Patients with other diabetes-linked complications, such as macro- and microvascular conditions and diabetic ulcers, were also at increased risk. The team also found that the risk of CA-SAB rose with the number of years a patient had diabetes. Poor control of diabetes was another factor that raised the infection risk.
"It has long been a common clinical belief that diabetes increases the risk of S. aureus infection, but until now this has been supported by scant evidence," study author Jesper Smit, MD, from Aalborg University Hospital in Denmark, said in a journal news release.