We have heard from the early days of the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia that the new coronavirus is more likely to cause death in the elderly and patients with other underlying diseases.
As the new coronavirus pneumonia evolved into a "global pandemic", we learned that male patients are more likely to develop Covid-19 severe cases than female patients and die from complications.
A study about a month ago believed that more men died of the new coronavirus than women because of several lifestyle choices specific to men, for example men are more likely to have smoking and drinking habits. Then, these habits may lead to health conditions, and once infected with Covid-19, they may endanger their lives.
Since then, other studies have shown that smoking, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol are all risk factors for Covid-19, as are obesity and other medical conditions.
An overweight man with diabetes and heart disease may be more difficult to cope with infections than women, and men may be more prone to complications than women.
It turns out that when it comes to the prognosis of Covid-19, it is not just lifestyle choices that may have a direct impact on gender differences.
A study published in Medrxiv that has not been peer-reviewed explains that the reasons why male patients take longer to recover than females are related to how their bodies are constructed.
Doctors from New York and India observed a total of 68 patients in Mumbai, including 48 males and 20 females. The average age is 37 years, but this group of patients also includes three 75-year-olds.
Researchers have found that women can remove viruses from their bodies on average two days faster than men. The study included two families with male and female patients. In both cases, women cleared the infection faster than men.
The study suggests that women recover faster because they have fewer ACE2 receptors to deal with. Previous studies have shown that ACE2 is a key receptor for SARS-CoV-2 to invade human cells, and the lungs are affected The largest area.
But ACE2 receptors also exist in other organs, including the heart muscle, kidneys, digestive tract, and testes. According to the study, among the three independent expression databases, testis is one of the highest expression sites of ACE2. In contrast, the expression of ACE2 in the ovary is extremely small.
This small difference may be an important reason for explaining that men need a longer time to remove viruses from the system. The testis may be the "reservoir" of the virus, and the virus may continue to replicate here.
This study requires more verification, and more research may be needed to prove this finding. But the study does mention similar work from China, proving that men may show loss of testicular gonadal function after infection.
