Key result
Old age, metabolic disease, and male sex linked to worse COVID-19 via chronic systemic inflammation.
Why the study?
COVID-19 appears to stem from an interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and an existing pandemic of metabolic disease driven by obesity.
Highlights the synergistic risk of aging, male sex, and metabolic disease in exacerbating COVID-19 severity through dysregulated immunometabolism.
May guide risk stratification in older males with metabolic disease; leaves open prospective validation of this immunometabolic paradigm.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a novel threat that seems to result from the collusion between a new pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and an existing pandemic of metabolic disease driven by obesity. This Perspective explores the evolving epidemiological, clinical, biological, and molecular evidence to propose an unfolding paradigm in which old age, chronic metabolic disease (such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome), and male biological sex produce a deadly symbiosis of dysregulated immunometabolism and chronic systemic inflammation that intensifies virally induced hyperinflammation associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. It is intended to inspire new research directions and stimulate funding in this field.
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Franck Mauvais‐Jarvis (2020) conducted a review in COVID-19. Old age, chronic metabolic disease, and male sex was evaluated. Old age, chronic metabolic disease, and male sex are proposed to produce a deadly symbiosis of dysregulated immunometabolism and chronic systemic inflammation that intensifies COVID-19.
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