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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 7, 2021; 27(41): 7065-7079
Published online Nov 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i41.7065
Gut microbiota in a population highly affected by obesity and type 2 diabetes and susceptibility to COVID-19
Jaime García-Mena, Karina Corona-Cervantes, Daniel Cuervo-Zanatta, Tizziani Benitez-Guerrero, Juan Manuel Vélez-Ixta, Norma Gabriela Zavala-Torres, Loan Edel Villalobos-Flores, Fernando Hernández-Quiroz, Claudia Perez-Cruz, Selvasankar Murugesan, Fernando Guadalupe Bastida-González, Paola Berenice Zárate-Segura
Jaime García-Mena, Karina Corona-Cervantes, Tizziani Benitez-Guerrero, Juan Manuel Vélez-Ixta, Norma Gabriela Zavala-Torres, Loan Edel Villalobos-Flores, Fernando Hernández-Quiroz, Departamento de Genética y Biología Molecular, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico City 07360, CDMX, Mexico
Daniel Cuervo-Zanatta, Departamento de Genética y Biología Molecular and Departamento de Farmacología, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico City 07360, CDMX, Mexico
Claudia Perez-Cruz, Departamento de Farmacología, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico City 07360, CDMX, Mexico
Selvasankar Murugesan, Department of Mother and Child Health, SIDRA Medicine, Doha 26999, Qatar
Fernando Guadalupe Bastida-González, Laboratorio Estatal de Salud Pública del Estado de México, ISEM, Toluca de Lerdo 50180, Estado de México, Mexico
Paola Berenice Zárate-Segura, Escuela Superior de Medicina, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico City 11340, CDMX, Mexico
Author contributions: García-Mena J, Corona-Cervantes K, Cuervo-Zanatta D, Benitez-Guerrero T, Vélez-Ixta JM, Zavala-Torres NG, Villalobos-Flores LE, Hernández-Quiroz F, Pérez-Cruz C, Murugesan S, Bastida-González FG, Zárate-Segura PB, contributed equally to conceptualization and design, paper writing, critical review, and approved the final version of the paper.
Supported by Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores México (SRE), No. SRE/027/2021; Agencia Mexicana de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AMEXCID), No. AMEXCID 2020-5; CONACyT for Doctoral Fellowships, No. 777953 (KC-C), No. 635676 (TB-G), No. 291236 (FH-Q), and No. 336296 (LEV-F); CONACyT for Master Fellowships, No. 997494 (NGZ-T), and No. 997152 (JMV-I); Fellows from the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, Mexico, No. 43142 (PZ-S), No. 225525 (FB-G), No. 47399 (CP-C), and No. 19815 (JG-M).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jaime García-Mena, PhD, Professor, Departamento de Genética y Biología Molecular, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Av. Instituto Politécnico Nacional 2508, Col Zacatenco, Mexico City 07360, CDMX, Mexico. jgmena@cinvestav.mx
Received: May 1, 2021
Peer-review started: May 1, 2021
First decision: June 12, 2021
Revised: June 25, 2021
Accepted: September 30, 2021
Article in press: September 30, 2021
Published online: November 7, 2021
Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a disease produced by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and it is currently causing a catastrophic pandemic affecting humans worldwide. This disease has been lethal for approximately 3.12 million people around the world since January 2020. Globally, among the most affected countries, Mexico ranks third in deaths after the United States of America and Brazil. Although the high number of deceased people might also be explained by social aspects and lifestyle customs in Mexico, there is a relationship between this high proportion of deaths and comorbidities such as high blood pressure (HBP), type 2 diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome. The official epidemiological figures reported by the Mexican government have indicated that 18.4% of the population suffers from HBP, close to 10.3% of adults suffer from type 2 diabetes, and approximately 36.1% of the population suffers from obesity. Disbalances in the gut microbiota (GM) have been associated with these diseases and with COVID-19 severity, presumably due to inflammatory dysfunction. Recent data about the association between GM dysbiosis and metabolic diseases could suggest that the high levels of susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 morbidity in the Mexican population are primarily due to the prevalence of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, High blood pressure, Hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, Obesity, Metabolic syndrome, Gut microbiota, Immunity

Core Tip: This work reviews recent data about gut microbiota (GM) diversity in Mexico, a country in which more than 18.4% of adults present high blood pressure, 39.1% are overweight, 36.1% are obese, and more than 10.3% suffer from type 2 diabetes. This review highlights the link between GM dysbiosis and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 prevalence, which ranks Mexico third in cumulative coronavirus disease 2019 deaths in the world.