Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Jul 15, 2021; 12(7): 1026-1041
Published online Jul 15, 2021. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v12.i7.1026
Immunometabolic bases of type 2 diabetes in the severity of COVID-19
Rebeca Viurcos-Sanabria, Galileo Escobedo
Rebeca Viurcos-Sanabria, Research Division, Hospital General de México, Mexico City 06720, Mexico
Galileo Escobedo, Laboratorio de Proteómica, Dirección de Investigación, Hospital General de Mexico “Dr. Eduardo Liceaga”, Mexico City 06720, Mexico
Author contributions: Viurcos-Sanabria R and Escobedo G read the literature and wrote the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Fondo Sectorial de Investigación para la Educación-CONACYT-México, No. CB-2016-01-286209; and the Fondo Sectorial de Investigación y Desarrollo en Salud y Seguridad Social SS/IMSS/ISSSTE/CONACYT-México, No. SALUD-2017-02-290345.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict 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: Galileo Escobedo, PhD, Full Professor, Laboratorio de Proteómica, Dirección de Investigación, Hospital General de Mexico “Dr. Eduardo Liceaga”, Dr. Balmis 148, Mexico City 06720, Mexico. gescobedog@msn.com
Received: February 3, 2021
Peer-review started: February 3, 2021
First decision: March 1, 2021
Revised: April 16, 2021
Accepted: June 16, 2021
Article in press: June 16, 2021
Published online: July 15, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) acts in synergy with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 infection to increase the progression, severity, and mortality of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Thus, the immunometabolic bases of the main etiological factors of T2D that contribute to the severity of COVID-19 should be studied. Here, we discuss the molecular mechanisms by which immune cells, hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, loss of pancreatic β-cell mass, insulin resistance, advanced glycation end products, endothelial dysfunction, and prothrombotic state contribute to the severity of COVID-19. The syndemic between COVID-19 and T2D has challenged our ability to identify patients with high mortality risk based on scientific evidence.