Stress hyperglycemia is associated with disease severity in COVID-19.

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic that has affected millions of people worldwide. In this paper, we analyse the relationship between stress hyperglycaemia and disease severity in patients with COVID-19.

Material and methods: A total of 252 patients with COVID-19 were included in this study. The patients were divided into the following groups: COVID-19 with stress hyperglycaemia (SHG), COVID-19 with diabetes (DM), and COVID-19 with normal blood glucose (NG). The stress hyperglycaemia rate (SHR) was calculated using the fasting blood glucose (FBG)/glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) ratio. To further compare the disease characteristics of different SHRs, we divided the SHR into low SHR and high SHR according to the SHR median. Correlations between the severity of the disease and other factors were analysed after adjusting for sex and age. Multivariate analysis was performed using logistic regression to analyse the risk factors predicting the severity of COVID-19.

Results: Compared with the NG group, the SHG group had higher disease severity (p < 0.001); the SHG group had higher HbA1c, FBG, SHR, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), interleukin 6 (IL-6), and neutrophil levels, while lymphocyte, CD3+ T cell, CD8+ T cell, CD4+ T cell, CD16+CD56 cell, and CD19+ cell counts were lower (p < 0.05). Compared with the NG group, the DM group had higher HbA1c, blood glucose, BUN, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP), and neutrophils, while CD8+ T cell counts were lower (p < 0.05). Compared with the DM group, the SHG group had higher SHR and lower HbA1c, CD3+ T cell, CD4+ T cell, CD16+CD56 cell, and T cell ratio levels (p < 0.05). Compared to the low SHR group, the high SHR group had patients with more severe COVID-19 (p = 0.004). Also, the high SHR grouphad higher age, HbA1c, FBG, asparate aminotransferaze (AST), BUN, LDH, uric acid (UA), CRP, IL-6, and procalcitonin (PCT), while lymphocyte, CD3+ T cell, CD4+ T cell, CD8+ T cell, and CD19+ cell counts were lower (p < 0.05).Binary logistic regression analysis showed that SHR, gender, and lymphocyte count wererisk factorsfor the severity of COVID-19.

Conclusion: Stress hyperglycaemia, as indicated by a higher SHR, is independently associated with the severity of COVID-19.