Oxford: A new study has warned that taking steroids doubles the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Patients taking steroid tablets, injections or infusions were 2.6 times more likely to develop diabetes than those not taking steroids, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Madrid.
The results of this large-scale study confirm suspicions that the effects of steroids on blood sugar levels may increase the risk of diabetes, the researchers said.
“Diabetes is very common in patients treated with glucocorticoids,” said Dr. Rajna Golubik, a lecturer in diabetes and endocrinology at the University of Oxford.
“We will be doing more extensive research to get stronger evidence of how likely people are to develop diabetes while being treated with these drugs,” he said.
