Men with low testosterone ‘at greater risk’ of dying from coronavirus

Recent research found that men are twice as likely to die in hospital of the virus than women.

The study, which analysed 17.4 million patient records, also discovered that the risk increased with age independently of the fact that people tend to develop more health conditions as they get older.

Experts have since been questioning why men are more affected and German scientists now believe testosterone, which regulates the body’s immune response, could play a part.

Research carried out in a German hospital of coronavirus patients admitted to intensive care, found that the majority of male patients who died had low testosterone levels.

Researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology, in Hamburg, assessed the first 45 lab-confirmed coronavirus patients (35 men and 10 women) admitted to the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.

From the group, nine men and three women died. A total of seven patients had needed oxygen and 33 were put on a ventilator.

On their first day on the ICU each patient was tested for 12 hormones, including testosterone and dihydrotestosterone.

Out of the 35 men, more than two thirds (68.6 per cent) were found to have low levels of testosterone, the study said. In comparison, more than half of the female patients (60 per cent) had raised levels of the hormone.

The study found that higher testosterone levels in women were linked to an increased inflammatory response.

High or low levels of testosterone can lead to dysfunction in the body and the hormone plays an important role in monitoring the immune system’s response. Low levels of testosterone in men can confuse the body’s response when fighting off a pathogen, which can lead to a so-called cytokine storm – a hyper-inflammatory condition.