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TOPLINE:

Individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) had a more than twofold increased risk for incident sepsis than matched control individuals without T2D. This risk was especially pronounced in men and individuals aged 60 years or younger.

METHODOLOGY:

• Sepsis, a life-threatening organ dysfunction arising from infection, is a leading cause of death worldwide, with a mortality rate of over 10%; patients with T2D are two to six times more likely to develop it and experience worse outcomes, yet contemporary data remain scarce.
• Researchers conducted a longitudinal observational study to determine the incidence of sepsis in 1430 participants with T2D and 5720 age-, sex-, and postcode-matched control individuals without the condition (mean age of the combined cohort, 66 years; 52% men).
• They compared 10-year age-specific and overall incident rates for sepsis between cohorts.

TAKEAWAY:

• At study entry, 2.0% of patients with T2D had a prior hospitalization for sepsis compared with 0.8% of matched control individuals (P < .001).
• During 73,139 person-years of follow-up, incident sepsis occurred in 11.8% of participants with T2D compared with 5.0% of those without diabetes (P < .001).
• The overall incident rate ratio was 2.38 (95% CI, 1.96-2.89), with T2D associated with a more than twofold increased risk for incident sepsis (hazard ratio, 2.16; 95% CI, 1.78-2.62); the rate ratio was more prominent in patients aged 60 years or younger.
• The risk for incident sepsis was more pronounced in men and those of Aboriginal ancestry.

IN PRACTICE:

“People living with type 2 diabetes experience double the risk of incident sepsis, but the disparity is more marked in those ≤ 60 years. Modifiable risk factors include smoking and hyperglycemia, but prevention of chronic complications and comorbidities is also imperative,” the authors of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by W.A. Davis, Medical School, University of Western Australia in Fremantle, Australia. It will be presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) 2025 Annual Meeting in Vienna, Austria, on September 15-19, 2025.

LIMITATIONS:

The study may have been subjected to recruitment bias. Changes in management during follow-up were not considered.

DISCLOSURES:

One author reported receiving support from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Project Grants for the conduct of this study. Another author reported receiving support from a Medical Research Future Fund Practitioner Fellowship.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.