Recently, a study published in the European Heart Journal showed that men have higher levels of an important enzyme in their blood than women, which is used by novel coronaviruses to infect cells, which may help explain why men are more susceptible to COVID-19.
This enzyme, called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), is located in the heart, kidneys and other organs.
Researchers believe it plays a role in the process of COVID-19 infection entering the lungs.
Commonly used ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers do not cause ACE2 concentrations to become higher and therefore do not increase the risk of COVID-19 infection by taking these drugs.
Adriaan Voors, a professor of cardiology at Groningen University Medical Center in the Netherlands who led the study, said in a statement that the findings do not support discontinuing the drugs in COVID-19 patients, as suggested in previous reports.
However, this study has its limitations. It measured the concentration of ACE2 in plasma, not in lung tissue. And the patients who participated in the study did not have COVID-19, so the researchers could not provide a direct link between the disease process and ACE2 plasma concentrations.
Iziah Sama from UMC Groningen said: "When we found that one of the strongest biomarkers, ACE2, was much higher in males than in females, I realized that this could potentially explain why males are more likely to die from COVID-19 than females."
ACE2 is not only found in the heart and kidneys, but also in the tissues around the lungs and blood vessels, and is particularly high in the testes.
Scientists speculate that its regulatory role in the testes explains to some extent why men have higher ACE2 concentrations and why men are more susceptible to COVID-19.
According to the latest WHO real-time statistics, as of 9:32 Central European Time on 12 May, there were 4058252 confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia and 281,736 deaths worldwide.
