Chronic Steroid Use Could Raise Diabetes Risk

Taking steroids more than doubles a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new study warns.

Patients taking steroid pills, injections or infusions are 2.6 times more likely to develop diabetes than those not on steroids, researchers reported Sunday in a presentation 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 can boost diabetes risk, researchers said.

"Existing information on how much more common new diabetes is in patients treated with glucocorticoids is based on small studies including patients with one or a few conditions," said lead researcher Dr. Rajna Golubic, a lecturer in diabetes and endocrinology with the University of Oxford. "We wanted to expand the data to get a more accurate idea of how likely it is that people could develop diabetes while being treated with these drugs."

Steroids are used to treat a wide range of medical problems by helping quell inflammation. These include asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and cancer.

Unfortunately, the drugs also increase blood sugar levels by reducing insulin sensitivity and interfering with cells' ability to absorb glucose, according to Diabetes UK.

To see whether this effect on blood sugar could cause diabetes, the research team analyzed data on more than 450,000 people treated between 2013 and 2023 by Oxford University Hospitals.

None of the people had diabetes at the start of the study, and none were taking steroids.

During the period of the study, nearly 4% of the patients began taking steroids while in the hospital, including prednisone, hydrocortisone and dexamethasone.

Of all the patients, about 2% of those taking steroids wound up with type 2 diabetes, compared with fewer than 1% of those who didn't receive steroids, researchers found.

When age and sex were factored in, steroids increased people's risk of diabetes by 2.6 times, researchers concluded.

"These latest results give clinical staff a better estimate of how likely new diabetes is to occur and could prompt doctors to plan clinical care more effectively to detect and manage new diabetes," Golubic said.

People regularly taking steroids for asthma and arthritis should be monitored for diabetes, Golubic added.

Because these findings were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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