| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| Why the new coronavirus may kill more men than women |
| 2020-03-10 |
| Advisory Board via Instapundit As cases of the new coronavirus increase worldwide, research published last week by China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that men are more likely to die of the virus than women, despite men and women being infected at similar rates, Roni Caryn Rabin reports for the New York Times. ...New research from China has found that men, particularly middle-aged and older men, are having a harder time fighting off the virus than women. Chinese researchers found that while the infection rate among men and women is the same, the death rate among men is 2.8% compared with 1.7% for women. According to Sabra Klein, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the pattern‐men faring worse than women‐is consistent with other viral respiratory infections. "Women fight them off better," she said. Officials noticed this gender difference during the SARS and MERS outbreaks as well, according to Caryn Rabin. For instance, research found that in 2003 more women were infected by SARS in Hong Kong, but men died at rates 50% higher than women. And during the MERS outbreak, 32% of men died of the infection compared with 25.8% of women, Caryn Rabin reports. ...According to researchers, there are a few reasons men are more likely to die from the new coronavirus. Women have a heightened immune response Research on previous outbreaks shows that women have stronger immune responses to coronaviruses. According to Janine Clayton, director of the Office of Research on Women's Health at NIH, "There's something about the immune system in females that is more exuberant," but researchers have yet to figure out what that is. Some researchers think the higher level of estrogen, which contributes to immunity, and the fact that women have two X chromosomes, which carry immune-related genes, could factor into women's heightened immune response. For instance, in one experiment, researchers exposed mice to SARS and found male mice were more susceptible to the infection and were slower to clear the virus. They also died at higher rates and experienced more lung damage, according to Stanley Perlman, senior author of the study and a professor of microbiology at the University of Iowa. However, when the researchers blocked estrogen in the female mice and removed their ovaries, they were more likely to die from the virus. Blocking testosterone in the male mice on the other hand had no effect on the death rate. ...Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunology at Yale University, added that men may have a "false sense of security" about coronavirus and similar diseases. When the outbreak first started, for instance, officials recommended that people wash their hands thoroughly and often to prevent infection, but multiple studies have found that men are less likely to wash their hands and use soap than women, according to Klein. "We make these broad sweeping assumptions that men and women are the same behaviorally, in terms of comorbidities, biology and our immune system, and they just are not," |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #9 4 weeks of what my wife watches vs. licking doorknobs. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-03-10 16:01 |
| #8 Manflus are worse than other flus. |
| Posted by: gorb 2020-03-10 15:27 |
| #7 Could it be that women will nag the virus to death????? And guys just give up????? |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2020-03-10 14:53 |
| #6 the over 85 population in the USA is mostly female (about 65%) so even if a higher proportion of men die there will likely be more female deaths |
| Posted by: lord garth 2020-03-10 12:06 |
| #5 The most important question is ,of course, how will th coronavirus affect trans people? |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2020-03-10 10:43 |
| #4 Oh, and men wait lots longer before seeing a doctor. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2020-03-10 10:41 |
| #3 Men smoke more (used to, anyway?) Men work at more jobs with lung-damaging air quality? |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2020-03-10 10:37 |
| #2 Women don't breath as deep. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2020-03-10 08:56 |
| #1 Why the new coronavirus may kill more men than women By design? Cruise ships as beta-test ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-10 08:26 |