Now scientists claim you’re more likely to develop type 2 DIABETES if you’re unvaccinated against Covid

People who are not vaccinated against Covid are at a higher risk of diabetes, a study suggests.

Researchers claim it could be because un-jabbed people have a more severe reaction to the virus, which triggers inflammation and may interfere with blood-sugar regulation.

Experts at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, California, looked at nearly 24,000 patients hospitalized with Covid between 2020 and 2022 and sorted them by vaccination status.

They found that 2.7 percent of those who were not inoculated developed new diagnoses of diabetes in the months or years after clearing the illness compared to one percent among those who got the shots.

Dr Alan Kwan, a cardiologist who led the study, said: ‘These results suggest that Covid vaccination prior to infection may provide a protective effect against diabetes risk.

‘Although further studies are needed to validate this hypothesis, we remain steadfast in our belief that Covid vaccination remains an important tool in protecting against Covid and the still-uncertain risks that people may experience during the post-infection period.’

In the study, published today in JAMA Network Open, researchers looked at Covid patients sent to the Cedars-Sinai health system between March 2020 and June 2022.

A total of 23,709 patients were included, and they were 47 years old on average. 

The analysis accounted for factors including age, sex and engagement with the healthcare system — but was unable to confirm how infections or vaccinations were shifting a patient’s risk of diabetes.

Scientists suggested severe Covid may raise the risk of diabetes because of the inflammation the infection triggers in the body.

This can make cells more resistant to absorbing sugar, leaving the body struggling to control its blood sugar levels — triggering diabetes.

Diabetes after infection is a bigger concern for overweight and obese people who are already pre-diabetic, with the infection possibly tipping them over the edge.

In vaccinated people catching the virus, the body mounts a quick immune response — ensuring lower levels of inflammation.

But this may not happen in people who do not have immunity against the virus, especially if they already have a weakened immune system.

Dr Susan Cheng, a cardiologist at the Smidt Health Institute at Cedars-Sinai, said: ‘Although we don’t yet know for certain, the trends and patterns that we see in the data suggest that Covid infection could be acting in certain settings like a disease accelerator, amplifying risk for a diagnosis that individuals might have otherwise received later in life.

‘So, it could be that instead of being diagnosed with diabetes by age 65, a person with preexisting risk for diabetes might—after a Covid infection—be more likely to develop diabetes by age 45 or 55.’

The United States was among the first countries to start rolling out Covid vaccines in 2020 such as the Pfizer jab, but it also faced low jab uptake.

Statistics show that 69 percent of Americans are double-vaccinated against Covid — or 229million people — so far.

The Government also launched a booster rollout this winter, but uptake was anemic with just 15 percent of US adults — or 52million — coming forward for the shot.