Old age, diabetes, immune system and COVID-19
A significant deaths have been reported in comorbid condition
particularly in old age patients with metabolic disease and its
complications such as hypertension because this creates a low cytosolic
pH condition, which is a favorable state for SARS-CoV-2 virus for
binding to its ACE 2 receptor and enhances the virus transmission
(Arachchillage & Laffan, 2020). Further,
diabetes is associated with low-grade inflammation with systemic release
of cytokines, thrombotic events and this can lead to rapid deterioration
of patients of COVID-19 due to the additive burden of cytokine storm and
may increase the mortality in co-morbidity
(Randeria, Thomson, Nell, Roberts &
Pretorius, 2019). There is global diversity in severity and mortality
among COVID-19 patients because of the diverse ethnic, geographical and
immune system of patients. The immune system is one of the major
contributing factors for increased mortality rate in COVID-19 patients
because there is a suppression of the immune system due to chronic
diabetes, cancer, immunosuppressant therapy, corticosteroids and aging
which making patients more prone towards SARS-CoV-2 infection and may
increase the co-morbidity and mortality rate
(Bornstein et al., 2020;
Ferlita et al., 2019).