people with type 1 diabetes may be at a high risk of developing severe symptoms and illness from covid19 according to a new study published in diabetes care diabetes is generally known to weaken the immune system making it harder to protect against viral infections like covid19 viruses like the novel coronavirus may also aggravate preexisting diabetic systems leading to added challenges managing blood sugar levels and worse outcomes researchers found that about half of the people in the study with type 1 diabetes and suspected or confirmed covid19 infections had abnormally high blood sugar highlighting how covid19 can complicate blood sugar control in type 1 diabetic patients having consistently high blood sugar can be a sign of diabetic ketoacidosis a potentially fatal diabetic complication that is characterized by high blood sugar and low insulin levels it is commonly triggered by infections more organizations coming together to represent type 1 diabetics during coronavirus in the study almost half of all confirmed covid19 cases also developed diabetic ketoacidosis this points to the need for people with diabetes to check their blood glucose often and to keep blood glucose in good control said dr km venkat narayan professor of global health and epidemiology at emory university who was not involved in the study he added people with diabetes in general are at increased risk of adverse covid complications and at more than twice the risk of death from covid than people without diabetes there are two main types of diabetes type 1 and type 2 type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition which means that the immune system attacks the bodys own cells and impairs its ability to produce insulin a hormone that helps to control blood sugar levels blood sugar regulation is a complicated process affected by multiple factors such as food sleep stress and illness type 2 diabetes the much more common form of the disease usually presents itself in adults and can often be controlled by healthy eating and exercise a patient holds insulin medicine jan 17 2020 in minnetonka minn kerem yucelafp via getty images file this study only included patients with type 1 diabetes and a suspected or confirmed case of covid19 so far most of the studies published have lumped together all types of diabetes we know these conditions can be very different and we need to study them separately said dr fernando ovalle director of the division of endocrinology diabetes and metabolism at the birmingham school of medicine university of alabama who was not involved in the study dr mary pat gallagher director of pediatric diabetes at nyu langone health and coauthor of the study said that from the data they have the risks of complications such as high blood sugar and diabetic ketoacidosis with covid19 are probably similar to those seen in other viral illnesses however covid is a more serious infection than influenza narayan said more your days are numbered house lawmakers get angry over insulin prices more research is needed according