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Men contract a more serious coronavirus and are more likely to die from COVID. Several factors play the role of specific protection in women. These are the facts, writes Deutsche Welle.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been speculation about why men have a harder time with COVID-19: They care less about their health, smoke more often, and eat less healthily. An unhealthy lifestyle is especially common in older generations. Also, men are more likely to postpone a visit to the doctor when they have complaints.
Previous diseases and age structure
The facts on the incidence of COVID and mortality in men and women, established as of June of this year, were recently presented in a study of the Global Health 50/50 research initiative, carried out in more than 20 countries. Data shows that two-thirds of men with COVID die as a result of the infection and one-third of women.
This is probably related to previous diseases: men, for example, suffer much more frequently from diseases of the cardiovascular system, from which they die more frequently than women.
Age structure is also crucial: according to the Robert Koch Institute, in all age groups, including people between 70 and 79, mortality among men was twice as high as among women. Only then do the proportions equalize to change again in the age group between 90 and 99 years.
The role of the ACE2 receptor
An important role in these processes is clearly played by the receptor for the ACE2 protein, through which the coronaviruses that cause COVID-19, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (BIRS) penetrate. Anesthesiologist Bernhard Zwisler from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich said in June this year that SARS was also more severe in men.
According to a study from the Groningen University Medical Center, the concentration of the ACE2 receptor is significantly higher in men than in women. The researchers found this difference when studying possible links between this receptor and chronic heart failure.
According to Bernhard Zwisler, it is currently being investigated whether the use of ACE blockers as a means of lowering blood pressure does not lead to cells forming more ACE2 receptors and thus becoming more vulnerable to infection. This is likely, but not proven.
Do estrogen and the immune system protect women?
The female immune system is relatively more resilient than men’s, mainly due to the female hormone estrogen, which causes the immune system to react faster and more extensively against viruses. While male testosterone slows down the body’s defenses.
The fact that women’s immune systems respond more quickly and strongly to viruses is evident in other viral illnesses, such as the seasonal flu and the common cold.
However, women are more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system reacts unusually strongly and begins to attack its own cells; This is due to one of the known complications that occur with COVID-19.
There are also “purely genetic causes” that give women an advantage, molecular virologist Thomas Pitchman tells State Security. Some of the genes responsible for recognizing viruses are encoded on the X chromosome. Because women have two X chromosomes and men only one, women have an advantage in this regard.
India is a special case
However, in India, studies show that the risk of death from COVID is higher in women than in men. The data shows that the death rate among infected women is 3.3 percent and among men, 2.9 percent. In the age group between 40 and 49 years, 3.2 percent of infected women died and in men this figure is 2.1 percent.
Researchers are working intensively on this phenomenon. Among other things, women are believed to be more severely affected as there are simply more older women than men in India. Furthermore, relatively less attention is paid to women’s health: women are less likely to consult a doctor and often try to solve their own health problems.
In the coronavirus pandemic, children were surprisingly not the most vulnerable part of society; In most children, the disease is transmitted relatively easily and often without symptoms. Of all the coronavirus deaths in Germany, only a few were under the age of 18.
What exactly is due to this has not been fully clarified. Doctors believe that inherited “individual immunity”, which the mother transmits to the child during fetal development and after birth, through breast milk, helps in young children.
This “passive immunization” is usually sufficient until children develop their own immune defenses, at the age of ten. But even later, the immune system changes under the influence of new pathogens.
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