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The level of a key enzyme used by the new coronavirus to infect cells is higher in men’s blood than in women’s, a new study has found.
In most countries, the number of deaths from the new coronavirus among men is higher than that of women.
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The discrepancy was first observed in China, where the mortality rates it showed that 2.8 percent of the men who contracted the virus had died, compared to 1.7 percent of the women.
Italian women died in a death rate of 4.1 percent compared to 7.2 percent for men.
In South Korea, about 54 percent of reported deaths were among men.
The study, published Monday by the European Heart Journal, suggests that angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a key receptor on the cell surface that binds to the coronavirus and allows it to enter and infect cells, is more widespread in men than in women.
The scientists measured ACE2 concentrations in blood samples taken from more than 3,500 heart failure patients, both male and female, from 11 European countries.
The study started before the coronavirus outbreak and did not include patients with COVID-19, explained Adriaan Voors, a professor of cardiology at the Groningen University Medical Center (UMC) in the Netherlands, who co-led the study.
But when other research began pointing to ACE2 as key to the way the new coronavirus enters cells, Voors and his team saw significant overlaps with their study.
The journal’s findings add to numerous research and studies trying to explain why men so far seemed more vulnerable to COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, compared to women.
While there has been no comprehensive response so far, doctors suggest the answer lies in the combination of Behavioral, immunological, hormonal and genetic factors.
The data collected so far has shown that people who consume more alcohol and tobacco are likely to suffer more from the effect of coronavirus disease. Data Collected in 2015 by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that men drink approximately five times more alcohol than women. Men are also almost five times as likely to smoke as women.
Another reason why a woman’s immune system may work differently is because of the extra X chromosome that women have.
Women have two X (XX) chromosomes while men only have one (XY), and this is considered relevant to the immune response because a significant number of genes that regulate our immune response are encoded on the X chromosome.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
