The anti-inflammatory function of female sex hormones would protect women against serious forms of the disease.
- Estrogen, progesterone and allopregnanolone, female sex hormones, have an anti-inflammatory role that acts on immune cells by stimulating the production of antibodies.
- These hormones also explain why pregnant women, who produce more of them, are better protected.
Women and men are not affected in the same way by Covid-19. Very soon after the appearance of the pandemic, epidemiological data showed that the virus affects more men than women. To explain this difference, Italian researchers have put forward the idea that women respect barrier gestures better than men. A new study has come to give a scientific answer to this discrepancy: female sex hormones and their anti-inflammatory properties which protect them against serious forms is at the origin of the difference between the sexes.
Pregnant women better protected thanks to hormones
Estrogen, progesterone and allopregnanolone, female sex hormones, have an anti-inflammatory role that acts on immune cells by stimulating the production of antibodies. Thanks to them, the respiratory cells are better protected and can inhibit the ACE2 receptor through which the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 enters the cells. American researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) published the findings on November 8 in the journal Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism.
These hormones also explain why pregnant women are better protected against Covid-19. “Hormones that help maintain pregnancy – like progesterone – are 100 times more concentrated in the third trimester of pregnancydetails Graziano Pinna, professor of psychiatry at UIC and lead author of the study. Estradiol, allopregnanolone and progesterone all have important anti-inflammatory functions and help reset the immune system. This suggests that pregnant women became symptomatic…after delivering their babies due to the rapid decline in these hormones. The correlation was really striking ”
Older people have less hormones
This better protection for pregnant women is confirmed in the figures. According to data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US health authorities, 51 of the 38,071 pregnant women who contracted the virus died from it. This represents a mortality rate of 0.13% which climbs to 2% for those who were not expecting a child. “Pregnant women are 15 times less likely to die from Covid-19 than other women”, continues Graziano Pinna.
In addition to the explanation of the virus which affects women less seriously, in addition pregnant women, this would justify why the oldest people are more affected by Covid-19. “This observation in pregnant women provides a significant scientific basis, not only for why women are more protected than men, but also for why older people are less protected than younger people, because we know that more you are older, the more your hormones decrease”, concludes Graziano Pinna.
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