One in 10 diabetics with COVID-19 died within seven days of being hospitalized, a study of hospitals in France found.
The study, published in the journal Diabetologia, examined data for 1,317 patients admitted to 53 hospitals in France between March 10 and March 31.
On the seventh day of hospitalization, researchers found that 10.3 percent had died and 20.3 percent had been intubated and placed on a ventilator in intensive care.
Most of the hospitalized patients (89 percent) had Type 2 diabetes, and nearly half (47 percent) had microvascular complications, which included damage to the eyes, kidneys and nerves. Another 41 percent had macrovascular complications, which included damage to the arteries of the heart, brain and legs.
The presence of microvascular or macrovascular complications more than doubled the risk of death within a week.