Could Lower Testosterone in Older Men Explain Higher COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortalities?

The health scourge imposed on humanity by the COVID-19 pandemic seems not to recede. This fact warrants refined and novel ideas analyzing different aspects of the illness. One such aspect is related to the observation that most COVID-19 casualties were older males, a tendency also noticed in the epi...

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Autores principales: Montaño, Luis M., Sommer, Bettina, Solís-Chagoyán, Héctor, Romero-Martínez, Bianca S., Aquino-Gálvez, Arnoldo, Gomez-Verjan, Juan C., Calixto, Eduardo, González-Avila, Georgina, Flores-Soto, Edgar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8781054/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35055119
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms23020935
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author Montaño, Luis M.
Sommer, Bettina
Solís-Chagoyán, Héctor
Romero-Martínez, Bianca S.
Aquino-Gálvez, Arnoldo
Gomez-Verjan, Juan C.
Calixto, Eduardo
González-Avila, Georgina
Flores-Soto, Edgar
author_facet Montaño, Luis M.
Sommer, Bettina
Solís-Chagoyán, Héctor
Romero-Martínez, Bianca S.
Aquino-Gálvez, Arnoldo
Gomez-Verjan, Juan C.
Calixto, Eduardo
González-Avila, Georgina
Flores-Soto, Edgar
author_sort Montaño, Luis M.
collection PubMed
description The health scourge imposed on humanity by the COVID-19 pandemic seems not to recede. This fact warrants refined and novel ideas analyzing different aspects of the illness. One such aspect is related to the observation that most COVID-19 casualties were older males, a tendency also noticed in the epidemics of SARS-CoV in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012. This gender-related difference in the COVID-19 death toll might be directly involved with testosterone (TEST) and its plasmatic concentration in men. TEST has been demonstrated to provide men with anti-inflammatory and immunological advantages. As the plasmatic concentration of this androgen decreases with age, the health benefit it confers also diminishes. Low plasmatic levels of TEST can be determinant in the infection’s outcome and might be related to a dysfunctional cell Ca(2+) homeostasis. Not only does TEST modulate the activity of diverse proteins that regulate cellular calcium concentrations, but these proteins have also been proven to be necessary for the replication of many viruses. Therefore, we discuss herein how TEST regulates different Ca(2+)-handling proteins in healthy tissues and propose how low TEST concentrations might facilitate the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus through the lack of modulation of the mechanisms that regulate intracellular Ca(2+) concentrations.
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spelling pubmed-87810542022-01-22 Could Lower Testosterone in Older Men Explain Higher COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortalities? Montaño, Luis M. Sommer, Bettina Solís-Chagoyán, Héctor Romero-Martínez, Bianca S. Aquino-Gálvez, Arnoldo Gomez-Verjan, Juan C. Calixto, Eduardo González-Avila, Georgina Flores-Soto, Edgar Int J Mol Sci Review The health scourge imposed on humanity by the COVID-19 pandemic seems not to recede. This fact warrants refined and novel ideas analyzing different aspects of the illness. One such aspect is related to the observation that most COVID-19 casualties were older males, a tendency also noticed in the epidemics of SARS-CoV in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012. This gender-related difference in the COVID-19 death toll might be directly involved with testosterone (TEST) and its plasmatic concentration in men. TEST has been demonstrated to provide men with anti-inflammatory and immunological advantages. As the plasmatic concentration of this androgen decreases with age, the health benefit it confers also diminishes. Low plasmatic levels of TEST can be determinant in the infection’s outcome and might be related to a dysfunctional cell Ca(2+) homeostasis. Not only does TEST modulate the activity of diverse proteins that regulate cellular calcium concentrations, but these proteins have also been proven to be necessary for the replication of many viruses. Therefore, we discuss herein how TEST regulates different Ca(2+)-handling proteins in healthy tissues and propose how low TEST concentrations might facilitate the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus through the lack of modulation of the mechanisms that regulate intracellular Ca(2+) concentrations. MDPI 2022-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8781054/ /pubmed/35055119 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms23020935 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Montaño, Luis M.
Sommer, Bettina
Solís-Chagoyán, Héctor
Romero-Martínez, Bianca S.
Aquino-Gálvez, Arnoldo
Gomez-Verjan, Juan C.
Calixto, Eduardo
González-Avila, Georgina
Flores-Soto, Edgar
Could Lower Testosterone in Older Men Explain Higher COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortalities?
title Could Lower Testosterone in Older Men Explain Higher COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortalities?
title_full Could Lower Testosterone in Older Men Explain Higher COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortalities?
title_fullStr Could Lower Testosterone in Older Men Explain Higher COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortalities?
title_full_unstemmed Could Lower Testosterone in Older Men Explain Higher COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortalities?
title_short Could Lower Testosterone in Older Men Explain Higher COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortalities?
title_sort could lower testosterone in older men explain higher covid-19 morbidity and mortalities?
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8781054/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35055119
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms23020935
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