Malaria and diabetes

Both malaria and diabetes are more common in the developing world, and are major public health challenges. A direct relationship between these 2 conditions has not been evaluated. This review article assessed the literature guaging the relationship between these two conditions, and suggests a pragmatic approach to management. References for this review were identified through searches of PubMed, Medline, and Embase for articles published to October 2016 using the terms "diabetes" [MeSH Terms] AND "malaria" [All Fields]. The reference lists of the articles thus identified were also searched. The search was not restricted to English-language literature. Malaria has been documented to be more common in diabetes, in several studies from Africa. Malarial infection during pregnancy is an important cause of low birth weight and anaemia, and may contribute to the intra-uterine hypothesis explanation for the diabetes epidemic. Prevention and timely/effective management of malaria during pregnancy may therefore be viewed as a primordial preventive strategy against diabetes. Patients with diabetes have atypical malaria presentations. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, which is associated with primaquine failure for radical cure is also associated with dysglycaemia. Type 2 Diabetic mice infected with malaria are more efficient at infecting mosquitoes. A similar synergy in humans warrants evaluation, which would then make "diabetic malaria" a public health problem. Metformin has well known anti-malarial properties. There is significant literature available highlighting the link between diabetes and malaria, an area warranting active further research. Metformin as a prophylactic agent for malaria prevention warrants evaluation.