Association Between Genetic Variants in Heat Shock Protein Genes and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Obesity in Patients with Severe or Critical COVID-19: A Case-control Study

A common feature of severe COVID-19 and two common metabolic comorbidities, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and obesity, is a persistent inflammatory response. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are key regulators of cell proteostasis under stressful conditions, including inflammation, oxidative stress, hyperglycemia, and hyperlipidemia. The aim of the present study was to investigate associations between polymorphic variants in genes encoding HSPs and T2DM or obesity among patients with severe or critical COVID-19.