Study Finds Males With Low Testosterone More Likely To Die of Corona Virus

AP featured image — FILE- In this Feb. 9, 2018, file photo, a nurse hooks up an IV to a flu patient at Upson Regional Medical Center in Thomaston, Ga. Researchers found in a study of credit reports that more than 2 percent of adults had medical bills under $200 sent to a collections agency. More than half of the annual medical collections were for less than $600, according to the study, which examined 2016 credit reports for more than 4 million unidentified people. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

CNN hardest hit?

A study performed recently has discovered that men are two times more likely to die from COVID-19. While the reason has been unclear up to this point, a German study seems to point to testosterone levels as a key factor in male mortality rates. In particular, low testosterone.

From the Daily Mail:

The hormone is known to help regulate the body’s immune response but when a man has low levels of testosterone, the immune system is not kept in check and can go haywire following infection.

This leads to a so-called cytokine storm which happens when the immune system goes out of control as it tries to kill the pathogen.

A cytokine storm eventually begins damaging the body itself and, if left unchecked, can be fatal.

A doctor at Northwestern University told the Daily Mail that it is becoming obvious that what kills a majority of COVID-19 patients is not the damage done by the virus itself but from “complications from the misdirected fire from the immune system.”

Professor [Gülsah Gabriel from the Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology] adds: ‘It seems that testosterone has a dampening impact on the virus induced cytokine storm, which finally leads to death in both cohorts.

‘Men with normal testosterone levels do not present a cytokine storm and thus are more likely to survive.’

Writing in their study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed and scrutinised by independent academics, the medics say: ‘With SARS-CoV-2 continuing to infect humans worldwide, it was repeatedly reported that men with COVID-19 are at higher risk to develop severe and even lethal outcome compared to women, independent of age.

‘Thus, it has become of utmost importance to understand why men are more likely to die from COVID-19 than women.’

While this news is certainly interesting and provides some hope in better understanding this virus, it does makes one wonder – if low testosterone is a key element in COVID-19 mortality rates, should CNN be taking the health of 95% of their anchor crews more seriously? When is the last time Stelter had a ball check?