Men’s testicles ‘could make them more vulnerable to coronavirus'

I very much doubt that they are measuring whether people seriously ill or dying from this who have testicles are trans, intersex, klinefelter, hypogonadic or testicular cancer survivors, because, let's face it, even taken together such people amount to a tiny proportion of the population and the vast majority of adults with testicles are phenotypically men and identify as such. Similarly the vast majority of adults without them are phenotyically women and identify as such.

And the fact is that the statistics clearly show that twice as many men are getting seriously ill and dying from this thing as women.

And so medical scientists and clinicians are trying to find out why.

To be honest, that article is simply asking a ton of questions with quite a scatter gun approach. No one can draw any conclusions because the data simply doesn't exist at the moment. What are the ages, sex and co morbidities of those with it in the community? No one knows because no.one knows who has got it in the community.

I read an article where the thinking was that yes, it's testosterone that they believe (but medica obvs don't know for sure) that is causing the greater fatalities. So young boys pre-puberty have a better chance.
Women's
Oestrogen levels are the winner apparently - there was a recommendation that eating foods which are high in this (ie soya products) can support this further. I've gone veggie since this all started so am glad I've stocked up with tofu..

Marvels that any parent would call their kid Johnny Ball.

Think of a Number ?

www.sciencealert.com/geneticist-explains-why-more-men-are-dying-from-covid-19-than-women/amp

This popped up via my news feed this morning and it makes interesting reading regarding the different jobs of the chromosomes and why covid 19 is causing more deaths in males.

(Marvels that any parent would call their kid Johnny Ball.)

That's nothing, there was an expert on TV the other day, only in his early 30s, his name was Ronald McDonald.
Talk about a boy named Sue.

Cajona virus

Its like saying old people are more vunerable, though what it really is is that people with underlying health issues are more vulnerable, and it is just that older people are more likely to have an underlying issue.

I don't think they have evidence either way at the moment do they? These are confounders - is the risk factor being elderly, with co incidental other medical conditions, having medical problems and co incidentally being older or a combination of the two? I don't think the science is there to answer any of this at the moment.

Presumably we'll have a rebuttal about how lady testicles are different because of estrogen supplementation or something similar shortly.

And even if it was true or hormone balance was a factor, again only proper disaggregated data would help.

What I was reading was really just a kicking around of areas that are currently being researched. They weren't drawing any conclusions at all, merely just discussing what mechanisms might be at play, why some people appear to be at a higher risk, why are some having a very mild illness and others are dying.

They came up with three broad areas of severe illness/death - one was ARDS caused by severe lung involvement, likely linked to cytokine storm, the second was a mechanism involving reactions at a cellular level involving ace receptors that causes blood vessels to constrict in particular the pulmonary artery resulting in insufficient blood going to the lungs but with little infection in the lung and the third I cannot remember for the life of me.

The drs view was that oestrogen had some effect on the release of cytokines and so theoretically might make the first type of lung disease less severe where oestrogen was present. In the 2nd case they are looking at whether particular blood pressure medications might prevent pulmonary artery being affected.

The mention of ace 2 receptors in the testes was just commented on, without a conclusion because they said much more research needs to be done. I think they said that they are also present in the kidneys and liver, definitely in the gut and might possibly explain why some people get diarrhoea and nausea, as well as kidney and liver involvement, or that could be due to sepsis or cytokine storm. Again, much more research is needed because at the moment these are all just observations. They don't know if they are significant or not yet.

They didn't talk about the role of oestrogen really either and they acknowledged that younger women are still affected and are dying so oestrogen is no guarantee of a mild disease and again this needs more research.

They were very much considering confounding issues and the need for these to be included or excluded as quickly as possible.

Slightly unrelated but the possible oestrogen protection. Presumably the risk increases for women post menopause?

I've done a few surveys on Covid-19. Most have asked my gender rather than sex. All have asked my ethnicity.

I was reading about this earlier. It's just theoretical at the moment isn't it, because ace2 receptors are present in testes, as well as in the lungs, gut, nose and so on. Very few are present in ovaries. They are also considering whether oestrogen is protective as regards the cytokine release too, but cytokine storm isn't the cause of severe illness or death in every case.

Can you imagine the conversations asking for samples? "Hi, I know that you're currently struggling to breathe and worried that you may not make it but in the meantime would you mind if I tested your balls?"

''Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology at the University of Nottingham, added that another study had tested sufferers’ semen for coronavirus and had not found any, suggesting the testes were not an ‘important reservoir’.''

(Marvels that any parent would call their kid Johnny Ball.)

Referring to a healthy biological male - calling a spayed a spayed.

We need a summoning spell.

Ah, a woman after my own heart.

Don't go tempting the thighs and their organ bucket over here!

Ah, a woman after my own heart.

I genuinely thought this was a headline from The Onion at first.

So did I when DH read it out (I think his actual source was the DM ...)

Well, it sounds like it's a theory and there are plenty of other sex differences to account for the differential outcomes. I did have to restrain myself from a bit of black humour when reading the thread about vets possibly helping out the NHS....