Severity of Symptoms and Mortality in Diabetic Patients with COVID- 19 Infection. Review

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 pneumonia is an illness that was spreading rapidly around the world and causes many deaths. Diabetes, is considered as a risk factor which adds severity and mortality to COVID-19 infected persons. There are many studies aiming to explain the  exact association between diabetes and COVID-19.  This review aims to link between diabetes and COVID-19 risk factors, discuss the  management of patients with diabetes and COVID-19 and  provide perception into the COVID-19 disease complications relevant to diabetes .In this  review, many scientific articles and reports about COVID- 19 and Type 2 DM were collected from different databases (e.g., PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science) using keywords such as SARS-CoV2, COVID-19, TYPE 2 DM, Mortality, and CO-morbidities .The result  from this study found that diabetic patients has poor prognosis, severe symptoms, worsen outcomes, and the mortality rate is higher among COVID-19 patients who have diabetes mellitus. Many complications associated with diabetes like peripheral neuropathy and vascular insufficiency can make patients more susceptible to infections. One of the sever complication of Covid-19 infection is, the cytokine storm, that result in excessive release of inflammatory cytokines (TNF-a, IL-6, IL-10), and this may be aggravated by the inflammatory process together with the hyper-coagulable condition in diabetic patients. In conclusion: Hyperglycemia is established as risk factor for increased morbidity and mortality in covid 19 infection.