"We believe that COVID-19 can modify a person's genetic composition, which might accelerate disease proliferation and cause further worsening in diabetes and associated heart disease," Dr. Singla, the AdventHealth Chair of Cardiovascular Science at the College of Medicine, noted.
Dr. Singla has focused much of his research on heart failure, diabetes, and inflammation. He investigated the mechanisms and potential effects of COVID-19 on patients with high-risk diabetes, as well as the virus's ability to advance the disease, leading to inflammation and heart failure, in a recent article published in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
"Our thinking is that COVID-19 could have three significant long-term consequences on patients," Dr. Singla said. "The first is cognitive impairment, which can progress to Alzheimer's disease. Second, it can improve diabetes in pre-diabetic patients or circumstances. Third, it can aggravate diabetes problems such as cardiomyopathy or muscular dysfunction."
Dr. Singla hypothesizes that some diabetes patients who were infected with COVID-19 developed a different cellular makeup in their blood than diabetic individuals who were never infected with COVID. The next phase in his research will be to compare particular cellular variations between diabetics with and without COVID infection.
"Our goal is to see if there is a difference in blood composition or variations in cytokines—proteins that regulate cell communication—compared to non-COVID diabetic patients," Dr. Singla explained. "If any changes are discovered, we will need to investigate what diseases they could potentially trigger or worsen in those patients."
COVID-19 has infected over 600 million people globally, and while vaccines have rendered the virus less dangerous than it was two years ago, Dr. Singla says there are still many unsolved issues about COVID's long-term impact on health.
"For example, if someone is genetically prone to having heart disease or Alzheimer's disease, would that person develop heart disease or Alzheimer's disease sooner than they were predisposed to?" Dr. Singla stated "How severe would their sickness be, and will it be different in persons who contracted COVID-19 or did not?"
Dr. Singla stated that he is currently seeking to secure money to investigate the unsolved questions left by the virus.
"We want to determine if diabetes will be prevalent in COVID-19-infected patients in 10 or 20 years." Dr. Singla stated "Will they get a certain type of cardiomyopathy or diabetic muscle discomfort, and will the severity of those diseases be greatly increased? With this information, we will be one step ahead in designing medicines and therapies to address any disease variants that may arise."