A new study tracking testosterone levels in hospitalized COVID-19 patients has found a link between low levels of the hormone in men and severe diseas

Severe COVID-19 in men linked to low testosterone levels

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2021-05-26 09:00:16

A new study tracking testosterone levels in hospitalized COVID-19 patients has found a link between low levels of the hormone in men and severe disease outcomes. The research offers important clues as to why men seem to be at greater risk of death from coronavirus compared to women.

Very early in the pandemic, one of the first epidemiological observations to come out of China was that men seemed to be suffering from more severe illness than women. A large meta-analysis published late in 2020 confirmed those early suspicions. While there was no difference in general COVID-19 infection rates between men and women, men were nearly three times more likely to need intensive care treatment and were at greater risk of death.

One early hypothesis to explain this strange gender bias in disease severity suggested testosterone increased one’s risk of hospitalization and death. This was based on the knowledge that testosterone can dampen one’s immune response, so it seemed reasonable to suspect high testosterone levels were responsible for worse disease outcomes in men. There were even clinical trials testing drugs that lower testosterone as a treatment for COVID-19 patients.

However, by the end of 2020 researchers began to suspect we had the COVID-19 testosterone relationship backwards. A new study is offering the most robust insights on the subject to date, looking at circulating testosterone levels in 142 COVID-19 patients and reporting low testosterone levels are strongly linked to worse disease outcomes in men.

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