Metabolic Syndrome. Particularities During SARS-CoV-2 Infection

The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant public health crisis as the coronavirus continues to rapidly spread with long-term socioeconomic consequences. Another malady, although non-transmissible, also a significant health hazard is the metabolic syndrome, which has widespread globally, being classified as an epidemic as the western lifestyle expands worldwide. The SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic inflammation similar to obesity; nevertheless, the coronavirus causes an unregulated rise in cytokine secretion, resulting in multiple organ failures and death. Increasing evidence demonstrates that obesity aggravates the COVID-19 disease and its mortality, the four most prevalent comorbidities of COVID-19 being hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular, and respiratory disease, all of them tightly associated with obesity. This paper reviews the physiopathological processes that constitute the metabolic syndrome and the molecular mechanisms through which the coexistence of MetS can contribute to the pathogenicity of COVID-19 and an unfavorable outcome of the disease.