| ▲ | amelius an hour ago | |
Why are women far more likely to have long covid? | ||
| ▲ | deminature 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | |
The leading hypothesis is the same one that explains why women get more autoimmune disease generally. Women mount stronger immune responses than men - protective in acute infection (men had worse acute COVID outcomes), but it comes at a cost: women are the large majority of lupus, MS, Hashimoto's and RA cases. If long covid is substantially autoimmune/inflammatory, as the autoantibody findings in the OP article suggest, the group already primed for autoimmunity is the one you'd expect to be hit hardest. Proposed drivers: immune-regulating genes on the X chromosome (e.g. TLR7) and estrogen being immunostimulatory where testosterone is suppressive. | ||
| ▲ | defrost 15 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
Are they though?
~ https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/more-than-half-of-long-...and from that study:
~ https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-inf... | ||
| ▲ | smj-edison 12 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
I've heard things hypothesized to be either differences in hormone levels, or the one that's more fascinating to me is it could be because an issue came up with suppressing the second X chromezone. | ||
| ▲ | iamkrazy 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
Or maybe it's documented more because they complain more? | ||
| ▲ | Earw0rm an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | |
Perhaps because it involves immune system dysregulation. | ||