Admittedly, I’m starting to fade out all things Covid, as I’m sure many other people are too… But that article actually was interesting.
Additional studies by the Jackson team suggest that the coronavirus may preferentially infect the insulin-producing beta cells. This also makes biological sense. Beta cells and other cell types in the pancreas express the ACE2 receptor protein, the TMPRSS2 enzyme protein, and neuropilin 1 (NRP1), all of which SARS-CoV-2 depends upon to enter and infect human cells.
I’m quite curious about this. Does that mean that healthy type 1s without any serious comorbidities, who are lacking beta cells, are actually better protected against Covid? Or maybe just recover better, because it’s harder for the virus to take root?
Of course, Covid insects other cells, too… But they did go out of their way to emphasize that “preferentially”, meaning that anyone without beta cells should be inherently better off.
We’re starting to see commentary that well-controlled diabetics are at lower risk for severe infection, but I assumed that was specific to other diabetics and high risk populations. Now I’m specifically questioning if our risk is lower than in an otherwise equivalent population. I doubt anyone is really compiling the data for that, with TIR, standard deviation, and A1c alongside all the other relevant stats, though. There’s just not a lot of data on well-controlled diabetics in general, since they’re so few and far between.
We’ve seen several reports here about mild Covid cases, but do we have any posters here who have required hospitalization?
I’m sorry that so many more people will potentially share our fate. But I can’t help but see the potential upside for those of us already living with diabetes. The more people diagnosed with the illness, the more money there is in the industry, which leads to advanced research. There’s also higher demand for “breakthrough therapy” designations from the FDA, so we could finally start seeing faster movement through the system of new medications and devices.