How could having an infection worsen my glucose control?

How could having an infection worsen my glucose control?

Anne Peters, MD, FACP, CDE (Professor and Director of Clinical Diabetes Programs, USC Keck School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: Does taking additional insulin correct a high blood sugar level?; Why is my blood pressure important if I have diabetes?; What are the most common causes of death for people with diabetes? and more...

When people with diabetes, either type 1 or type 2, develop an infection, they get what we call 'Insulin resistance'. 'Insulin resistance' means that the body doesn't respond as well as it should to circulating insulin levels. So, say somebody with type 1 diabetes gets a head cold. Their blood sugar levels which may normally be a hundred may suddenly become 200 even though they have the same dose of insulin, so they are resistant. An infection makes you resistant to whatever your usual treatment is. As a result, many of my patients can tell when they are getting sick, because their sugar levels go up. Then, as long as they are sick, their sugar levels will stay high, and then they'll come down back to normal once the infection clears. In patients who aren't on insulin as often, I have to increase their insulin doses in order to bring their blood sugar levels back down. It's something that happens in all of us, but we, those without diabetes who get infections, don't know that we need to make more insulin, because our pancreases do it without thinking about it. However, in diabetes we just need to increase the medication to do with it.