Men Are More Likely to Contract COVID-19 Due To Higher Levels Of A Key Enzyme

European Study Says Men Have Higher Chance To Get Covid-19

On Monday, the results of a big European study showed that men’s blood has higher levels of a key enzyme used by the novel coronavirus to infect cells, as compared to women. This explains why men are more vulnerable to Covid-19 infection.

An enzyme found in kidneys, heart, and other organs, called Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is thought to play a major role in the progression of infection to lungs.

However, widely prescribed drugs like angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) or ACE inhibitors did not lead to higher levels of ACE2 in blood. Therefore the drugs don’t increase the risk of Covid-19 in people taking them.

Patients with diabetes, kidney failure, and congestive heart failure are widely prescribed with ARBs and ACE inhibitors. In prescription sales worldwide, the drugs account for billions of dollars.

Adriaan Voors, the co-author of the study and a professor of cardiology at the University Medical Center (UMC) in the Netherlands, stressed that they don’t recommend the discontinuation of these drugs.

According to the death and infection polls, men have a higher chance of getting the Covid-19 disease and to suffer severity, as compared to women.

The

team of researchers measured ACE2 concentration in blood in more than 3,500 heart failure patients from 11 European countries. They analyzed the blood samples of both men and women.

The study does not include Covid-19 patients, as it was conducted even before the pandemic wreaked havoc globally.

But few other research related to Covid-19 pointed out the key role of ACE2 in helping coronavirus to invade cells. That’s when Voors and his team saw crucial overlaps with their study.

Iziah Sama, a doctor at UMC Groningen who co-led the study, said as they found ACE2 is expressed much higher in men compared to women, they realized it could explain why the death toll of men due to Cocid-19 was higher than that of women.

The novel coronavirus binds to the ACE2 receptor on the surface of cells to infect and enter into cells.

In addition to lungs, the ACE2 is found in kidneys, heart, tissues lining blood vessels, and particularly higher in testes.

The higher levels of ACE2 explains why men have higher ACE2 concentration and why they are more vulnerable to Covid-19, compared to women.

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Editor’s Note; Men have more chances to get Covid-19. Men have higher ACE2 levels in their blood.