Diabetes and Viral Diseases

Abstract

Patients with diabetes are more susceptible to viral diseases, which are more likely to progress to severe cases in such patients. Diabetes and hyperglycemia have been reported to be major risk factors and poor prognostic factors for 2019 flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and the currently ongoing coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). However, it is not clear yet whether diabetes itself leads to higher risk and becomes a poor prognostic factor for viral diseases or if the real main factors are actually cardiovascular and renal complications that often accompany diabetes. On the other hand, viral diseases have frequently been suggested to be one cause or a contributing factor to develop diabetes. Two typical examples are the association between enteroviruses such as Coxsackie B virus and type 1 diabetes and the relationship between hepatitis C virus and type 2 diabetes. Recently, there has been research on the potentiality of changes in the intestinal microflora being a cause for diabetes, and there is evidence to suggest that intestinal virome affects intestinal microbiota. There has also been a claim that extracellular vesicles secreted by gut microbiota, rather than the microbiota itself, get absorbed into the body and come to cause diabetes.