The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Amazing finding: That is why men get sick more from a corona infection

2020-08-30T19:16:20.670Z


A corona infection can show completely different courses. Men often have to be treated in the clinic because of Covid-19. Researchers have now found a startling clue.


A corona infection can show completely different courses. Men often have to be treated in the clinic because of Covid-19. Researchers have now found a startling clue.

  • Since the beginning of the coronavirus * pandemic, researchers around the world have been trying to find out everything about the Sars-CoV-2 virus.
  • Why men get more seriously ill with Covid-19 than women has been puzzling researchers for a long time.
  • Scientists have now found another clue.

Munich - Covid-19 has turned the world upside down. There is new knowledge about the coronavirus from science almost every day . One theme: Even at the beginning of the corona pandemic, men were strikingly often affected by Covid-19 . In addition, it appeared that men had more severe coronavirus infections than women.

Researchers tried to explain the gender-specific differences in the number of cases in China by stating that the severe corona cases were mainly smokers - in China it was mainly men who smoked. However, why men are hospitalized more often and also die more often from Covid-19 than women, puzzled experts.

US researchers have now taken a closer look and examined the immune systems of infected men and women . The scientists wanted to find out how the immune system reacts to an infection with Sars-CoV-2. The researchers found a difference in the typical immune response in the female and male participants. This gender difference could be an important clue , according to the researchers . The results of the study were published in the journal "Nature". The group of test persons was therefore on average around 60 years old and comprised 50 women and 50 men.

Covid-19: How differently women and men react to a coronavirus infection

  • Women responded more to a coronavirus infection with immune cells known as T cells are known. These T cells are white blood cells that, along with antibodies, play an important role in the human immune system. They are called T cells because they mature in the thymus. There are T cells that recognize and kill cells in the body that have been infected by a virus. Others activate so-called B cells, which form defense substances, antibodies.
  • In the men , the researchers found a higher level of cytokines after a corona infection . Cytokines are proteins that indicate certain types of inflammation in the blood. They function as messenger substances and attract other immune cells to the sources of inflammation. If the immune system overreacts, however, too much cytokine is produced. This then marks and destroys many healthy cells. The researchers also observed a weaker defense by T cells.

The researchers also found that in male patients, a severe course of the disease was associated with a poor immune response of the T cells and that this also decreases with age. According to the scientists, the results are a possible explanation for the different course of the disease between men and women. It is therefore important to take this into account when treating patients.

Are men more susceptible to the coronavirus than women? In a European study, researchers found an indication of this: Analyzes showed that men's blood has a higher level of a key enzyme called ACE2  (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2) compared to women  .The Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus uses the ACE2 enzyme as a receptor to penetrate a host cell and then to replicate, i.e. to multiply. The ACE2 enzyme is found primarily in the lungs, but also in the heart, in the intestines. (ml) * Merkur.de is part of the Ippen-Digital network

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-08-30

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.