Mortality in patients with metabolic syndrome during the COVID-19 pandemic

a systematic review

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, responsible for the biggest health crisis today, is a serious public health problem worldwide. Metabolic comorbidities, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension and obesity, characterize the metabolic syndrome, and have been associated with severe forms of the disease and death. We investigated mortality in patients with COVID-19 and its association with metabolic diseases. This is a systematic review following the PRISMA recommendation. Cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies were considered. The MEDLINE/EBSCO, Cochrane Library, Pubmed and SciELO databases were consulted using strategies limited to English, Spanish and Portuguese, between January 2020 and March 2021. From this search, 14 articles were included. Most studies were published on the Medline platform (64.3%), in English (93%), cohort studies (57%). Around 60% of the population of the selected studies consisted of men and the mean age was 58 years. Approximately 20% of the total population of the studies had hypertension (25.8%), obesity (20.5%) and diabetes (19.1%) as comorbity. The mortality rate among those was 12.5%. The presence of metabolic comorbidities constituted factors associated with mortality in patients with COVID-19. Future studies are needed to accurately determine the pathogenic mechanism involving these patients, especially hypertensive, diabetic and obese men, and the development of severe forms of COVID-19 infection.