- Men, Make Health Your Goal This Year
- Child Car Seat Safety Tip: Skip Puffy Winter Coats
- UK Prime Minister Says British COVID Variant May Be More Deadly
- FDA Approves First Once-a-Month HIV Therapy
- Half of Americans Still Not Wearing Masks When Out in Public: Poll
- For Maximum Effectiveness, De-Stress and Get Healthy Before Your COVID Shot
- AHA News: Anxiety Is Linked With Smoking – But How Is Still Hazy
- Biden Warns of 500,000 COVID Deaths by February
- Health Highlights: Jan. 22, 2021
- For Rising Number of People, Obesity Is a Literal Headache
Diabetes Seems to Up Risks for Lung Disease Patients

THURSDAY, June 24People with diabetes who are hospitalized for sudden worsening of symptoms of the common lung disease known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have longer hospital stays and are more likely to die than COPD patients without diabetes, a new study has found.
This might be because impairment of their immune response due to high blood sugar may result in more severe infections, explained the researchers at Liverpool Hospital in Australia.
The investigators reviewed the records of COPD patients admitted with a sudden worsening of symptoms (acute exacerbations) during 2007. The average length of stay for patients with diabetes was 7.8 days, which was 10.3 percent longer than the average stay of 6.5 days for patients without diabetes.
Among hospitalized patients, the death rate for COPD patients with diabetes was 8 percent, compared with 4 percent for those without diabetes, according to the report published in the June issue of the journal Respirology.
“Taken together with other studies, our study shows that diabetes was an adverse prognostic factor in COPD patients. We believe that better control of diabetes in patients with COPD could improve outcomes; in particular, reducing length of hospital stays and risk of death,” study leader Dr. Ali Parappil, of the Liverpool Hospital’s respiratory medicine department, said in a news release from the journal’s publisher.
More information
The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about COPD.
Source: HealthDay