A study has yielded evidence that men have more ACE2 in their blood, that will allow the COVID-19 to sicken their cells and other complications. This serves as the entry point of coronaviruses in the body.
Research has revealed the role of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is higher in men, compared to women. This complication gives the coronavirus a way to attack males easier and make them candidates for worse symptoms.
The paper was published in the European Heart Journal on Monday, other facts that were found out was heart failure patients taking drugs targeting the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), did not affect such as angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) because of higher contents of ACE2 in the blood.
Dr Adriaan Voors (MD-PhD), Professor of Cardiology also said that the data suggesting for COVID-19 patients to stop taking these drugs is not supported.
Recent studies suggested that RAAS inhibitors will add more ACE2 in blood plasma, causing more patients with heart problems with more danger when infected with COVID-19. But the study revealed it was not right because it only check ACE2 in blood plasma or nothing about lung tissue.
He added,"Its conclusions are mainly restricted to heart failure patients, and the patients did not have COVID-19, so the researchers cannot provide a direct link between the course of the disease and ACE2 plasma concentrations."
Prof Voors added that ACE2 is on the surface of cells, this receptor allows the virus to enter when TMPRSS2 has mixed with the cell wall. In the lungs, more ACE2 proteins are the cause of lung disorders, when infected by the coronavirus.
He and co-authors are studying the markers of the disease in the blood of men and women, way before the COVID-19 came. All the results were in soon after the start of the outbreak.
Dr Iziah Sama from UMC Groningen, the initial lead of the study, said," When we found that one of the strongest biomarkers, ACE2, was much higher in men than in women, I realised that this had the potential to explain why men were more likely to die from COVID-19 than women."
They realized that this is what made men predisposed to death during treatment of COVID-19, the ACE2 protein acts a Trojan horse for the virus and next to the TMPRSS2, working together to infiltrate and kill the host cells. This makes men more vulnerable cell deep!
Researchers counted how dense the ACE2 was in blood samples from two groups of heart failure patients from 11 European countries, with 1485 men and 537 women in the first group to test their hypothesis. The average age of the men was 89 and 75 for women, and for validation was 74 to 76 years old.
They checked the clinical factors that can affect the density of ACE2, ACE inhibitors, ARBs, mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, and all the maladies that affect the heart. It was concluded that males have dense ACE2 concentrations in the blood, other factors had lower concentrations.
One of the first studies to check the relationship between ACE2 and renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system to heart disease. The ACE inhibitors and ARBs did not affect the density of ACE2, instead, a lower amount of ACE2 is expected, but it did not happen, according to Prof Voors. The evidence needs to be re-examined.
ACE2 is in the lungs, heart, kidneys, blood vessel tissue lining, and the testes too. With the testes regulating ACE2 in men that that make COVID-10 deadlier for males.
Related article: The One Thing That Makes Men More Vulnerable to Coronavirus
