The development of hyperglycemia thus results from the disruption of immune metabolic homeostasis induced by COVID-19. Elevated glucose levels induced by psychological stress, persistent inflammation, and β-cell dysfunction can lead to inflammasome activation in pancreatic β-cells. An interleukin (IL-1β) released by β cells causes the recruitment and activation of macrophages, which causes the release of even more of this interleukin, which eventually inhibits insulin secretion and triggers dysfunction and apoptosis of pancreatic β cells. This leads to an increase in glucose levels and then once more an increase in these interleukins, hence the installation of a vicious circle.
Exercise, by promoting the release of anti-inflammatory factors, helps restore brain homeostasis and insulin sensitivity, which reduces metabolic and depressive symptoms.
Exercise fights inflammation associated with COVID long,
which leads to high blood sugar and the development of depression
Long COVID causes what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describes as “a constellation of debilitating symptoms,” including brain fog, muscle aches, and fatigue that can last months following overall recovery from the initial infection. . Some patients may even “not really get sick” from COVID-19, but experience, 6 months later, new symptoms including cough, fever, diabetes.
While there is no known cure for long COVID, exercise helps stop this vicious cycle of inflammation that leads to the development of diabetes and depression months following the virus is cleared. Two effects now widely documented in the literature, underlines the main author, some patients even developing diabetic ketoacidosis, explains the main author, Dr. Candida Rebello, researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
Breaking the chain reaction of inflammation: exercise can be used as a therapy to break the chain reaction of inflammation that leads to high blood sugar levels and then the development or progression of type 2 diabetes and depression. Moderate, regular exercise is enough to dispel some symptoms, the authors point out. Walk slowly, practice 30 minutes a day, but in 15-minute sessions, “The important thing is to get into it, no matter at what level of intensity. It will then be possible to gradually reach the recommended level of exercise”.
