Coronavirus can also affect the pancreas

Coronavirus infection could be more persistent than previously assumed. German researchers have found that the pancreas can also be attacked by SARS-CoV-2.

Researchers at the University Hospital Ulm showed in a study that in A. Covid-19The disease can also attack the pancreas. The study authors found that when the disease progresses, the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas become infected, a spokeswoman for Ulm University announced. The study was published in the journal Nature Metabolism in early 2021.

Diabetes-like symptoms

According to the authors, the study results could also explain the occurrence of diabeticSuch as symptoms in patients with Covid-19 and a deterioration in sugar metabolism in diabetics with Covid-19.

Also in the journal “Nature Metabolism”, researchers from Kiel University had previously reported an individual case of a 19-year-old who had diabetes after contracting the Coronavirus.

Regulation of blood sugar level is disturbed

Study author Martin Wagner, chief physician at Ulm University Hospital, said that in patients with Covid 19 disease, there are always cycles in which the regulation of blood sugar level is disrupted. To investigate how this happened, researchers brought pancreatic tissue to come into contact with SARS-CoV-2 viruses and discovered that it could be infected with the coronavirus.

In addition, the deceased COVID-19 patients were examined. This showed that even when the virus proteins could no longer be found in the lungs, they could still be detected in the pancreas. She added that this is the case with different disease lengths. This indicates that infection with the Coronavirus is more frequent and persistent than was previously assumed.