Three quarters of all corona sufferers with a severe course are men. Their risk of dying from Covid is also higher than that of women. A study has identified possible reasons.
The number of laboratory-confirmed corona infections in Germany is increasing again – albeit at a comparatively low level. This development has been evident for about a month, as the Influenza Working Group at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) explains in its current report on the assessment of the epidemiological situation. Utopia reported.
According to the Tagesschau, about three quarters of all Covid intensive care patients are men. Their risk of dying from Covid-19 is also significantly higher than that of women. So far there have been no reasons for the observed differences. But now a study by an international research team, published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, shows that the severity of a Covid infection in men is linked to a metabolic imbalance.
Above all, “low testosterone levels in men correlated with a severe course of infection,” explains Gülsah Gabriel, virologist at the Leibniz Institute for Virology in Hamburg and the Foundation for Veterinary Medicine in Hanover, to the Tagesschau.
This gene plays a central role
In order to make the causes of the phenomenon tangible, the research team led by Gabriel examined the genes of almost 3000 people suffering from SARS-CoV-2. In particular, they analyzed a gene in more detail that influences the metabolism of testosterone: CYP19A1.
This gene is known to trigger a process called aromatase, a process by which the body breaks down testosterone and converts it into estrogen. Because the male body also needs the female hormone estrogen, for example for the purpose of bone metabolism or fertility.
Apparently, however, this process could be disrupted by a mutation of CYP19A1, as the research team found when evaluating data collected by a group of human geneticists from the University of Siena in Italy during the pandemic.
In the course of genetic examinations on the patients, the researchers found that men in particular who had to be treated in the hospital there often “carry a mutation in this gene”, emphasizes Gabriel, head of the study, to the Tagesschau.
Genetic mutation is associated with severe Covid courses
According to Tagesschau, this genetic mutation is relatively rare in the general population. However, Gabriel’s research team reports that 69 percent of the men who had to be treated in intensive care due to a severe course of Covid had it.
In comparative experiments with other viruses such as SARS-CoV-1 or influenza, there was no more intensive degradation of testosterone. The researchers concluded from this that the genetic variant is stimulated by infection with SARS-CoV-2 to intensify the conversion of testosterone into estrogen.
The researchers then also examined samples from patients who died due to a coronavirus infection. They discovered “that the activity of this gene is still very strong in the lung tissue of the men who died of Corona,” the virologist Gabriel told the Tagesschau.
According to the researchers, this could also explain why an illness with the coronavirus in men often leads to severe lung problems and is disproportionately fatal.
Sources used: Tagesschau, Cell Reports Medicine, Influenza Working Group (Robert-Koch Institute)
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