People with diabetes do face a higher chance of experiencing serious complications from COVID-19.The risk of getting severe forms of COVID-19 is likely to be lower if your diabetes is well-managed.
Fluctuating blood sugars, heart disease, or other complications in addition to diabetes, could worsen the chance of getting seriously ill from COVID-19 because your body’s ability to fight off an infection is compromised.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials in 2018, showed that remote patient monitoring is effective in controlling HbA1c levels in people living with type 2 diabetes (1).
In China, with aim of preventing person-to-person transmission, a variety of online services of glucose management have been implemented widely for diabetic patients and the general population during the outbreak of COVID-19. The popularization of Internet and smartphones, as well as emerging fifth generation networks, have ensured endocrinologists are able to provide remote medical consultation for the patients who are not advised to go to the hospital during the COVID-19 outbreak. Furthermore, free educational videos and e-books on diabetes self-management and COVID-19 prevention have been provided for the public via the WeChat mobile app.
To date, these online services and resources have played remarkable roles in the nationwide COVID-19 control in China (2)
Treatment of diabetes poses a challenge in current times when the world is going through an unprecedented pandemic.Remote patient monitoring can be very useful for the management of patients with diabetes in present times with limited access to healthcare facilities (3).
GluCare Integrated Diabetes Center is by your side 24/7 to help you well-manage your diabetes, to look at trends, to intervene earlier, and provide better predictions to avoid fluctuating blood sugars, heart disease or other complications based on your data. Through our remote monitoring service some problems can be solved without visiting the clinic, thereby lowering the risk for patients to get in contact with the COVID-19 virus.
More studies are following soon, to show the benefits of remote monitoring, especially in scenarios of pandemics.
Reference
(1) The impact of Telehealth remote patient monitoring on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials Puikwan A. Lee, Geva Greenfield & Yannis Pappas, BMC Health Services Research, 2018
(2) Timely blood glucose management for the outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is urgently needed Aihong Wang, Weibo Zhao, Zhangrong Xu, Jianwen Gu, Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 2020
(3) Diabetes in COVID-19: Prevalence, pathophysiology, prognosis and practical consideration Awadhesh Kumar Singh a , Ritesh Gupta b , Amerta Ghosh b , Anoop Misra bcd , Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews, 2020
About Author
Dr. Yousef Said is a German board-certified specialist in Internal Medicine and Diabetology at GluCare.
