During the Covid-19 epidemic, research and healthcare for diabetics has seen some changes. Research has had to grapple with a pressing additional health crisis, while care has had to adjust to telemedicine and find ways to reprioritize.
Doctor Pop-Busui is the head diabetes researcher at the Michigan Diabetes Research Center. She said one of the main issues that became apparent in terms of Covid and Diabetes was an increased vulnerability to infection, but she said that isn't the only issue. Diabetes can lead to low grade chronic inflammation, and when that interacts the with Coronavirus, the inflamation can worsen.
“Inflammation itself is one of the driving factors behind the risk that leads to the development and progression of many of the complications that patients with diabetes may develop during their life,” said Doctor Pop-Busui.
Doctor Pop-Busui said another issue is that Covid patients with Diabetes have been found to have higher viral loads. She said that is just one of a number of other complicating factors as well. She recommends people with type-2 diabetes especially take the necessary precautions in light of the Coronavirus epidemic.
As telemedicine has become more prevalent it has been harder for some to get the care they need, but Pop-Busui said that a development in the Diabetes care and research fields has helped some to get even better care even during this difficult time.
She said, “our team of diabetic foot specialists were able to create a new risk algorithm and then upload patient’s foot ulcers photos into the electronic medical records and then decide who really needed to be seen in person.”
Pop-Busui said that often those with foot ulcers have had to get amputations, but with the new evaluation algorithm, there has been a decrease the number of extreme cases and amputations.