Abstract
INTRODUCTION: It is widely accepted that the higher the number of medications prescribed and taken by an individual, the higher the risk of poor health outcomes. We have investigated whether polypharmacy and comorbidities conveyed more risk of adverse health outcomes following COVID-19 infection (as a paradigm of serious viral infections in general) in people with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) or type 2 diabetes (T2DM). METHODS: The Greater Manchester Care Record (GMCR) is an integrated database of electronic health records containing data collected from 433 general practices in Greater Manchester. Baseline demographic information (age, body mass index [BMI], gender, ethnicity, smoking status, deprivation index), hospital admission or death within 28 days of infection were extracted for adults (18+) diagnosed with either T1DM or T2DM. RESULTS: The study cohort included individuals diagnosed as T1DM and T2DM separately. Across the Greater Manchester Region, a total of 145,907 individuals were diagnosed with T2DM and 9705 were diagnosed with T1DM. For the T2DM individuals, 45.2% were women and for the T1DM individuals, 42.7% were women. For T2DM, 16-20 medications (p = 0.005; odds ratio [OR] [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.375 [1.306-4.319]) and > 20 medications (p < 0.001; OR [95% CI] 3.141 [1.755-5.621]) were associated with increased risk of death following COVID-19 infection. Increased risk of hospital admissions in T2DM individuals was associated with 11 to 15 medications (p = 0.013; OR = 1.341 (95% CI) [1.063-1.692]). This was independent of comorbidities, metabolic and demographic factors. For T1DM, there was no association of polypharmacy with hospital admission. Additionally, respiratory, cardiovascular/cerebrovascular and gastrointestinal conditions were associated with increased risk of hospital admissions and deaths in T2DM (p < 0.001). Many comorbidities were common across both T1DM and T2DM. CONCLUSIONS: We have shown in T2DM an independent association of multiple medications taken from 11 upwards with adverse health consequences following COVID-19 infection. We also found that individuals with diabetes develop comorbidities that were common across both T1DM and T2DM. This study has laid the foundation for future investigations into the way that complex pharmacological interactions may influence clinical outcomes in people with T2DM.