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Review|Volume 12, Issue 24|pp 26248—26262

Influence of aging on deterioration of patients with COVID-19

Limin Pang1, Yi Liu1, Maoze Shen4, Jujian Ye1, Ruirong Chen1, Zhien Lan1, Zhijian Wu3, Yang Guo2, Peidong Zhang1
  • 1Department of Cardiology, Heart Center, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China
  • 2Department of Neurology, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China
  • 3Department of Cardiology, Boai Hospital of Zhongshan, Southern Medical University, Zhongshan, People’s Republic of China
  • 4Department of Internal Medicine, Raoping County People's Hospital, Chaozhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China
* Equal contribution
Received: August 12, 2020Accepted: September 29, 2020Published: November 24, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202136

Copyright: © 2020 Pang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Aging is an important factor affecting the deterioration of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The aging and degeneration of various tissues and organs in the elderly lead to impaired organ function. Underlying conditions such as chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes in aged patients are associated with higher mortality. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) primarily interacts with the cell surface receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) 2 and other accessory proteins such as 78 kDa glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) and CD147. Thus, altered receptor signals in aging and chronic disease play a role in SARS-CoV-2 infection, and are associated with a higher risk of deterioration in different organs. In this review, after a brief introduction to the link between aging and receptors for SARS-CoV-2, we focus on the risk of deterioration in different organs of COVID-19 patients considering aging as the main factor. We further discuss the structural and/or physiological changes in the immune system and organs (lung, heart, kidney, vessels, nerve system), as well as those associated with diabetes, in aging patients, and speculate on the most likely mechanisms underlying the deterioration of COVID-19 patients.