Enlarge / A woman with diabetes pricks her finger to take a blood sample to measure the glycemia in Paris on March 24, 2020. (credit: Getty | Franck Fife )

A person's odds of getting a new diabetes diagnosis were 58 percent higher in the months following a COVID-19 infection compared with prior to infection, even amid the era of omicron, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open .

The study is just the latest to link the development of diabetes to COVID-19, which pandemic data suggests increases the risk of a range of cardiometabolic conditions, including blood clots, myocarditis, stroke, and diabetes. A study published early last year in Nature Medicine tapped into the medical records of more than 11 million veterans and found that people who had recovered from COVID-19 had a 63 percent higher risk of developing any of 20 cardiovascular diseases , including a 55 percent higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and death.

The data on diabetes is equally worrying. In a systemic meta-analysis published in Scientific Reports last November, researchers compiled data from eight cohort studies involving data from more than 47 million people and found that COVID-19 infection was linked to a 66 percent increased risk of developing diabetes.

Enlarge / Symptoms of long COVID-19 include fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive issues. (credit: Getty Images / ArtistGNDphotography)

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Even mild COVID-19 cases can have major and long-lasting effects on people’s health. That is one of the key findings from our recent multicountry study on long COVID-19–or long COVID–recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Long COVID is defined as the continuation or development of symptoms three months after the initial infection from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These symptoms last for at least two months after onset with no other explanation.

Une première étude de Santé publique France donne des détails sur les personnes atteintes d'un Covid long.

Santé publique France

Enlarge / A plasma donor is connected to an apheresis machine, which separates plasma from blood as people donate blood plasma for medicines, at the Twickenham Donor Centre, southwest London on April 7, 2021. (credit: Getty | Johnathan Brady )

The COVID-19 pandemic is considered by many experts to be a mass disabling event. Though most people fully recover from a battle with the highly infectious coronavirus, a significant chunk of patients develop lingering, sometimes debilitating symptoms—aka long COVID. Estimates of how many COVID patients endure long-term symptoms can vary considerably. But the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that nearly one in five COVID patients report persistent symptoms. With hundreds of millions of COVID-19 cases reported around the globe, even the more modest estimates would still suggest that tens of millions have lasting effects.

Yet, as those patients seek effective care, researchers are still scrambling to define, understand, and treat this new phenomenon. Many patients have reported uphill battles for finding care and relief, including long waits at clinics and few treatment options when they see a care provider.

Cue the quacks. This situation is ripe for unscrupulous actors to step in and begin offering unproven products and treatments—likely at exorbitant prices. It's a tried-and-true model: When modern medicine is not yet able to provide evidence-based treatment, quacks slither in to console the desperate, untreated patients. Amid their sympathetic platitudes, they rebuke modern medicine, scowl at callous physicians, and scoff at the slow pace and high price of clinical trials. With any ill-gotten trust they earn, these bad actors can peddle unproven treatments and false hope.

Enlarge / A long COVID patient sits with her daughter in her wheelchair while receiving a saline infusion at her Maryland home on Friday, May 27, 2022. (credit: Getty | The Washington Post )

Among adults vaccinated against COVID-19, the odds of developing long COVID amid the omicron wave were about 20 percent to 50 percent lower than during the delta period, with variability based on age and time since vaccination.

The finding comes from a case-control observational study published this week in The Lancet by researchers at Kings College London. The study found that about 4.5 percent of the omicron breakthrough cases resulted in long COVID, while 10.8 percent of delta breakthrough cases resulted in the long-term condition.

While the news may seem a little reassuring to those nursing a breakthrough omicron infection, it's cold comfort for public health overall since the omicron coronavirus variant is much more transmissible than delta.

Enlarge / A long-COVID patient in Germany takes a pulmonary function test at Hufeland Clinic's Center for Pneumology. (credit: Getty | picture alliance )

More than one in five adults in the US who have recovered from COVID-19 may end up developing a long-term condition linked to the viral infection, according to a study published this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

The post-COVID conditions span heart, lung, kidney, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, neurological, and mental health conditions. Overall, COVID survivors had nearly twice the risk of developing respiratory and lung conditions, including pulmonary embolisms, compared with uninfected controls. The most common post-COVID conditions were respiratory conditions and musculoskeletal pain.

Among COVID survivors, people ages 18 to 64 were more likely than older survivors to develop cardiac dysrhythmia and musculoskeletal pain. The risks for survivors 65 and up were greater for kidney failure, blood clots, cerebrovascular disease, muscle disorders, neurological conditions, and mental health conditions.