By Nancy Lapid
(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the new coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Study suggests possible link of coronavirus to type 1 diabetes
A small study in the UK suggests that researchers should be on the lookout for whether COVID-19 increases the risk of type 1 diabetes. Cases of type 1 diabetes among children may have increased during the peak of Britain’s COVID-19 outbreak, scientists said in the journal Diabetes Care on Monday in a study based on 30 cases at two hospitals. Compared to a typical year, this represented an 80% increase, they said. “When we further investigated, some of these children had more active coronavirus than previously exposed to the virus,” said co-author Karen Logan of the St. Mary’s Hospital in London. In type 1 diabetes – formerly known as juvenile diabetes – insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are destroyed, preventing the body from producing enough insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. The researchers said one explanation could be that the new coronavirus would attack insulin-making cells in the pancreas. “More research is needed to determine if there is a definitive switch … but in the meantime, we hope clinicians will have their say on this,” Logan said. (https://bit.ly/3gg2q8O; https://reut.rs/2YgEhZQ)
Breath test screening for COVID-19 shows early promise
It may once be possible to screen large populations for COVID-19 using breath tests, researchers said. Their new breathalyzer device has made sensors made of gold nanoparticles linked to specially selected molecules that can detect disease-specific chemical biomarkers from exhaled breath, they reported on Tuesday in the journal ACS Nano. In a pilot study in Wuhan, China in March, a team of Chinese and Israeli researchers tested the device in 49 COVID-19 patients, 58 healthy controls and 33 people with non-COVID lung infections. In this small study, the device showed 100% sensitivity for identifying patients with COVID-19 and for distinguishing patients with other lung infections, but was less effective in correctly identifying those without COVID-19. The researchers said their device is not intended to replace gold standard diagnostic tests, but if its reliability can be proven in larger studies, it could be useful “for rapid large-scale population screening in a short period of time” in public places such as airports , shopping malls and train stations as in the community, for early detection of the disease in asymptomatic infected people. (https://bit.ly/3j0Jqgx)
Odor and taste loss differ with COVID-19 versus cold
The odor and taste disturbances associated with the new coronavirus differ from what people experience with a cold and are likely associated with nerve damage, a new study suggests. Researchers gave smell and taste tests to 10 COVID-19 patients, 10 people with bad colds and 10 healthy people. Unlike people with colds, COVID-19 patients were able to breathe freely and tended to have a runny or blocky nose. Furthermore, they could not detect bitter than sweet flavors, and generally had more severe taste impairment. The original SARS virus, which caused a worldwide outbreak of respiratory disease in 2003, could enter the brain, the researchers noted in a report Wednesday in the journal Rhinology, and said their new findings weighed on the hypothesis that COVID 19 also infects the brain and central nervous system. “It is particularly interesting that COVID-19 is particularly similar to sweet and bitter taste receptors, as they are known to play an important role in innate immunity,” studied co-author Carl Philpott of the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School in Britain said in a statement. “More research is needed to see if genetic variation in human bitter and sweet taste receptors can predispose them to COVID-19.” (https://bit.ly/2En6TZZ)
Blood fat cells break down into bad COVID-19
Blood clots, a known complication of COVID-19, are at least partly due to damage to the endothelium, as a blood supply, researchers have suspected. Now, a study confirms that severe COVID-19 is linked to “marked and widespread” injury to blood vessels, with high numbers of cells normally existing that loosen blood vessel lines and are circulating in the blood. As reported Wednesday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, researchers in France examined levels of so-called circulating endothelial cells disconnected from injured vessels in 99 hospital COVID-19 patients. Levels were significantly higher in patients in intensive care units and were correlated with patients’ levels of inflammatory proteins, disease severity of illness, and length of hospital stay. The researchers tested each patient’s blood only once, so they could not distinguish how injuries to blood fat supply could evolve as the disease became less severe. Still, they said, blood nutrition plays important roles in maintaining vascular stability and function, delivering blood to organs and regulating blood clotting, and any endothelial injury would limit those functions. (https://bit.ly/3hciKZr)
Open https://tmsnrt.rs/3a5EyDh in an external browser for a Reuters image about faxes and treatments in development.
(Report by Nancy Lapid and Kate Kelland; Edited by Will Dunham)
