Scientists explain why men die from COVID-19 one and a half times more often than women

Men may have a slower immune response to coronavirus than women, and this could explain their higher mortality rate. Business Insider.

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According to a study by scientists from the University of Washington, a slower immune system response in men to the coronavirus could put them at a higher risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to women.

Scientists have found that in women under the age of 60, the immune system provides almost immediate protection against the virus. However, it took an average of three days for men of all ages for their bodies to start using T cells (white blood cells that detect and destroy virus-infected cells) to fight the coronavirus.

The researchers came to this conclusion after studying 430 nasal swab tests for COVID-19—176 in men and 201 in women—that they collected from the University of Washington virology laboratory between March and August.

This study expanded on the previous one, which showed that women with COVID-19 tend to produce more T cells that help the body kill cells infected with the coronavirus than men with the same disease.

The researchers said the new findings could help explain why nearly half as many men died from COVID-19 as women. The Lancet from August 22, 2020, the overall ratio between male and female mortality per 100 thousand people was 1,4, the data varied in different age groups from 0,8 to 2,6).

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A person's gender can affect their immune response.

The researchers' findings are consistent with previous studies, according to which a person's gender influences how many cells that fight the virus are produced in a person after the onset of the disease.

Women, for example, have more hormones estrogen, progesterone, and androgen than men. These hormones are thought to play a role in the response of the immune system when a person is sick.

An August study published in the journal Nature found that women produce more coronavirus-fighting cells than men, regardless of age. And for the women themselves, age did not affect how many cells they produced.

“We now have clear evidence that the immune landscape in patients with COVID-19 differs significantly between the sexes and that these differences may underlie increased susceptibility to disease in men,” senior author of the August paper said in a press release. Research by Akiko Iwasaki.

The new study comes with caveats. The scientists said the experiment should be repeated with samples of other bodily fluids because nasal swabs are not the most effective way to test a person's immune response.

In addition, factors such as smoking and preexisting medical conditions, not just a person's gender, can make a person more susceptible to serious COVID-19 symptoms. Therefore, researchers cannot say unequivocally whether the delay in the immune response in men is related to gender.

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Men and women may need different treatments for COVID-19

However, the results show that the bodies of men and women respond differently to infection, which could mean that they also need different treatment approaches.

As Iwasaki said, “natural infection is clearly not helping” men, who tend to have worse symptoms and higher death rates than women when it comes to COVID-19. They may need more doses of the coronavirus vaccine than women because of the delayed immune response.

“You can imagine scenarios in which one vaccine might be sufficient for younger people, or perhaps young women, while older men might need three vaccines,” said Markus Altfeld, an immunologist at the Heinrich Pette Institute in Germany.

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