Why Has COVID-19 Caused More Deaths in Men than Women? SARS-CoV-2's Ability to Reduce Testosterone Levels Could Be One of the Reasons, Says New Turkish Study
COVID-19 has caused more deaths in men than women the world and researchers have been trying to find a link. A recent study by Turkish researches has found that it is probably SARS-CoV-2's ability to reduce testosterone levels in men's body that maa new study has found.
COVID-19 has caused more deaths in men than women the world and researchers have been trying to find a link. A recent study by Turkish researches has found that it is probably SARS-CoV-2's ability to reduce testosterone levels in men's body. The connection between the high probability of contracting COVID-19 and low testosterone levels has been studied in this research. It was earlier believed that low testosterone in COVID-19 patients may not worsen the condition, however, the latest study believes that it may be the infection that is causing the levels of the male sex hormone to reduce.
Researchers from the University of Mersin, and the Mersin City Education and Research Hospital in Turkey, reported in The Aging Male journal: “For the first time, our data suggest that Covid-19 might deteriorate serum testosterone level in SARS-CoV-2 infected male patients. Low serum total testosterone level at baseline has a significant increased risk for the ICU and mortality in patients with Covid-19,”
They further noted that "Future studies related to testosterone treatment in this population would discover possible improvement in clinical outcomes with the testosterone treatment in SARS-CoV-2 infected hypogonadal male patients". Testosterone, the male sex hormone depletion linked with the vulnerability towards COVID-19 will need more research, however, the reason why more older men are having COVID-19 is being associated with the testosterone decreases on an average by 0.8–2 percent as men age. Lead author Selahittin Çayan, professor of urology, explained: “Testosterone is associated with the immune system of respiratory organs, and low levels of testosterone might increase the risk of respiratory infections.”
He further said, "Low testosterone is also associated with infection-related hospitalisation and all-cause mortality in male in ICU patients. So testosterone treatment may also have benefits beyond improving outcomes for Covid-19."
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 30, 2020 12:39 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).