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Men were previously reported to have a higher chance of contracting the novel coronavirus COVID-19 than women. Now, we are learning that there are some men who are more likely to contract the virus than their fellow male counterparts.
According to a report from the Science Times, men who have lower levels of testosterone are more likely to die from COVID-19.
“Men with normal testosterone levels do not present a cytokine storm and thus are more likely to survive,” Professor Gülsah Gabriel from the Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology in Hamburg, told the Daily Mail.
“Thus, low testosterone levels in men seem to be a risk factor for severe and even fatal disease outcome in men upon infection with so-called ‘cytokine inducing’ respiratory viruses.”
From the report:
Of the 35 men, more than two thirds – about 69 percent — had low levels of the male sex hormone, which helps control the body’s immune response, while 60 percent of the women had elevated testosterone levels. Without an ample supply of the hormone, the body can’t regulate its immune response, which could lead to a deadly “cytokine storm,” which occurs when the immune system goes haywire as it tries to kill the pathogen.
The study was conducted at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.
The coronavirus mainly comes from animals and a majority of those who were infected early either worked at or frequently visited the Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, according to The Guardian. The virus is similar to Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers).
The Wuhan coronavirus is transmitted from person to person through “droplet transmission.” That means an infected person can pass the virus by sneezing or coughing on another person as well as by direct contact.
While a majority of the cases have been detected in the United States and China — with more than 80,500 deaths in the United States and more than 1 million confirmed cases — it has now reached many countries around the world. It has also been confirmed in Italy, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and many other eastern countries.
