“Stimulating” Studies Explain Why Men Are More Vulnerable to Coronaviruses

Anyone can get Covid-19, but not everyone suffers the same way result.. For some people, No symptomsTo others, it’s deadly. Men are always more likely to die.

In Europe, for example, the World Health Organization 58% Covid-19 deaths. Higher mortality rates for men have also been reported China And America..

The scientist is Covid-19 Kill more men Why is it less certain than women? New now Investigation Points scientists in a promising direction, suggesting that the male immune system may process the virus differently.

In a paper published on Wednesday Nature, Headed by Yale University scientists Akiko Iwasaki The men they studied at Covid-19 reported a weaker T-cell response to the virus than women.

T cells Professional fighter Inside the immune system’s armory. While some types of T cells can destroy cells infected with the virus, other types of T cells help produce antibodies that help prevent the virus from infecting the cells.

The low T cell response found in men is associated with future exacerbations of the disease, scientists report.

This study details the immune system revealing powerful global trends: July Investigation At 10,962 days, Covid-19-related deaths helped consolidate the idea that men were at increased risk of death from Covid-19 compared to women of the same age.

Warner greenImmunologist and Director of The Gladstone Center for HIV Cure Research Reverse This new paper is “provocative” and “very interesting”, and was made by “a group of very talented researchers.” It also suggests why men are often more at risk.

“They do feel that they have reached some of the underlying sex differences underlying different male and female responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection,” he says.

Sabrach line Professors of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University agree. She wasn’t involved in research either, Reverse This study is “stimulating” and provides “new clues” as to why the male immune system could lose the fight against Covid-19.

Men, Women, Covid-19– This study was conducted on a relatively small sample of the scientific world. 17 men and 22 women were hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19.

In that cohort, people weren’t in the ICU and didn’t receive the steroids that help boost the immune response, so scientists can see how their immune system responds naturally to the virus. It was The team also included another group of 59 people, some of whom were hospitalized at the ICU for severe illness and finally included a control group of uninfected health workers.

Overall, Covid-19 women Increased T cell response Compared to males and healthy controls (the latter is expected).

Importantly, this study was not good news for all women. Some women may also have elevated levels of two cytokines. This is a group of signaling proteins that the immune system uses to communicate. Higher levels of these cytokines were associated with more severe disease progression, even if the T cell response was unchanged from the less diseased.

Encouraging points — Green says the study suggests that different men and women may benefit from different treatments.

• In men, it may be necessary to enhance the T cell response, perhaps through a vaccine, to prevent the disease from worsening.
• In women, certain cytokine responses may need to be “blunted” early in the infection to prevent the disease from worsening.

Klein warns that this study does not give an overview of sex and Covid-19. It has been shown that the immune response can vary by gender, but there are biological differences such as genetics and sex hormones (estrogen, testosterone, etc.) that have not been measured here. These can also affect the progression of the disease in men and women.

“I think this study provides exciting clues to the different immune responses between men and women infected with SARS-CoV-2, but why men are twice as likely to die of COVID-19.” It doesn’t touch on the underlying mechanism of “,” says Klein.

The average age of female study participants was about 60 years, so the study authors suggest that sex hormones may not be a very powerful factor. This still leaves other paths untapped.

“I have this job Major impact…”

For example, it is well established age Increase the risk of Covid-19. The paper suggests that gender inequality and coronaviruses may address age issues with a little more nuance.

For men, the team found that the older the man, the worse the T cell response appeared. But that didn’t apply to women. As Iwasaki Said New York Times, A 90-year-old woman “is still making a decent immune response, which is pretty good.”

The fact that women tend to have a strong immune response is nothing new. 2018 PNAS paper We have found that female mice have a stronger immune response when given the influenza vaccine. The female immune system also tends to cope better with HIV once infected. 2007 Research 2,620 patients were found.

However, that strong reaction is not always good. Women It suffers from autoimmune diseases (excessive immune system attacks the body) more than men.

With respect to Covid-19, the fact that women tend to continue strong T cell responses can be particularly helpful if they can manage cytokines that may exacerbate the disease. These cellular responses also provide a path that scientists can follow when trying to boost a man’s immunity. Klein says this is an important finding:

“A stronger T-cell response in older women could be a key clue to protection and needs further investigation,” she says.

Green’s intuition says this paper will spark like more. They may give us a better answer.

“We hope this work will have a significant impact and will stimulate a lot of follow-up,” he adds.

Overview: Increased evidence points to gender differences in clinical outcomes for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)^{1 to 5}.. However, it is currently unknown whether the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 differ between sexes and whether such differences may explain male susceptibility to COVID-19. This study examined the sex differences in viral load, SARS-CoV-2 specific antibody titers, plasma cytokines, and blood cell phenotypes in COVID-19 patients. By focusing the analysis on patients with moderate illness who are not receiving immunomodulators, male patients have a more potent induction of non-classical monocytes along with plasma of innate immune cytokines such as IL-8 and IL-18. It became clear that the level is high. In contrast, female patients mounted significantly stronger T cell activation than male patients during SARS-CoV-2 infection, which was maintained at an older age. Importantly, we found that poor T cell responses were negatively correlated with patient age and were associated with worse disease outcome in male patients but not in female patients. Conversely, the higher the innate immune cytokines in female patients, the worse the disease progresses, but not in male patients. These findings reveal the possible explanations underlying the sexual prejudice observed with COVID-19 and provide an important basis for the development of a gender approach to the treatment and care of men and women with COVID-19. To do.