Anti-diabetics and antimicrobials: Harmony of mutual interplay

Abstract

Diabetes is one of the four major non-communicable diseases, and appointed by the world health organization as the seventh leading cause of death worldwide. The scientists have turned over every rock in the corners of medical sciences in order to come up with better understanding and hence more effective treatments of diabetes. The continuous research on the subject has elucidated the role of immune disorders and inflammation as definitive factors in the trajectory of diabetes, assuring that blood glucose adjustments would result in a relief in the systemic stress leading to minimizing inflammation. On a parallel basis, microbial infections usually take advantage of immunity disorders and propagate creating a pro-inflammatory environment, all of which can be reversed by antimicrobial treatment. Standing at the crossroads between diabetes, immunity and infection, we aim in this review at projecting the interplay between immunity and diabetes, shedding the light on the overlapping playgrounds for the activity of some antimicrobial and anti-diabetic agents. Furthermore, we focused on the anti-diabetic drugs that can confer antimicrobial or anti-virulence activities.

Keywords: Diabetes; Immune disorders; Anti-diabetics; Antimicrobials; Anti-virulence

Core Tip: Understanding the mutual interplay between diabetes and microbial infection is necessary to control both and to avoid a lot of serious complications that may happen in such clinical conditions. Repurposing of approved drugs and investigation of their new application represents a promising approach for maximizing treatment outcomes. In this review, we shed light on the overlapping areas of efficacy between anti-diabetics and antimicrobials.