Let’s talk about sex in the context of COVID-19

In recent months, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has sent many countries into crisis. Studies have shown that this virus causes worse outcomes and a higher mortality in men than in women. It has been recognized that sex can affect the immune response to a pathogenic agent, as well as the susceptibility for some respiratory diseases. These different responses in males and females may be related to the actions of sex hormones. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) acts as the receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes COVID-19. The expression of ACE2 is influenced by sex hormones; therefore, we discuss in this article that this could be one of the reasons why COVID-19 is more prevalent in men than in women.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  Journal of applied physiology

• Publication date

  2020-05-21

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1152/japplphysiol.00335.2020PMID 32437244PMCID 7303729
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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