Men and coronavirus

[QuentinWinters]

Young men more likely to break lockdown
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52587368

Men in all age groups more likely to be severely impacted and die.

Maybe it is time for male specific restrictions?

And certainly questions about your reproductive system are personal!

Well then, don't answer. Quite simple.

Sorry, wrong thread.

And anyone got any ideas on the weird positioning of 'I've never had s period' at the top of the answers?

That does seem odd. Perhaps it was a rush to get the new questions in and they didn't think through the order?

With a large percentage of the population overweight or obese, and obese men at particular risk, isn't that fact that obese men can have elevated oestrogen of interest?

The hormone is only one half of the equation, the other half is receptors. Oestrogen doesn't function like an antiviral - directly preventing virus replication/cell egress, it produces physiological changes which may offer a protective effect. In obese men, those receptors are insensitive, disturbing the hormone homeostasis and causing the body to compensate.

And does anyone know why it's oestrogen being looked into as protective while it doesn't seem to be that testosterone is being looked at as a risk factor?

There are studies looking into this too. However, the number of men in the UK who have a clinical diagnosis of low testosterone is a tiny fraction of the population or even compared to the number of women on HRT and there isn't a clear profound change that relates to testosterone levels in older males as there is with oestrogens and menopause.

And certainly questions about your reproductive system are personal!

Again, that is why they offered the option to not give an answer. It's an electronic survey, not a human interviewer, it's hardly getting a kick out of your reaction at being asked a personal question.

When you're designing a questionnaire esp one going to hundreds of thousands of people you always think of the order.

If they didn't then presumably they just did the list in the same order as they came up with, which again begs the question, that's a really odd answer to think of first.

I do see your point.

It's an electronic survey, not a human interviewer, it's hardly getting a kick out of your reaction at being asked a personal question.

Exactly, so why they are so coy about asking your sex?

If they are interested in testosterone as a risk factor, and diagnosis is low, then erections are a proxy. Same as a question about periods is a proxy for hormonal status in women.

Hence why I wrote that in the first place!

The positioning of oestrogen as protective and tbh I've seen no mention in MSM as a risk, anyone know why?

If there is a difference between the sexes why not look at both sides of the coin.

BeetrootRocks

Contact the researchers if you are that concerned. I'm sure they will be able to answer all of your questions.

Exactly, so why they are so coy about asking your sex?

Got it, in a nutshell Thelnebriati

BeetrootRocks

Because oestrogen and progesterone are at different levels in different age groups. I'm guessing this is as much about ruling it out as it is in.

Maybe the will rule it out as protective if they can examine data within certain age groups, now knowing the differing levels.

So, say they would expect post menopausal women to have the same risk as men due to lower levels of hormones yet stats don't beat this out. Now looking at this data they see that the women who do better are on hrt.

Same as looking at lower age groups - maybe anomalies will be amongst women who have amenorrhea.

Or, maybe they'll see that there is no difference between women regardless of their hormone profile.

I'm really not understanding your level of objection here at all.

Obe aspect being considered is that Covid is causing constriction in blood vessels, particularly pulmonary artery and vein. Progesterone relaxes blood vessels doesn't it, if I'm remembering correctly?

Progesterone does appear to inhibit vasoconstrictives in vitro and is known to have hypotensive activity in the general population but, in biochemistry, it's very hard to say that 'this does that'. For example, we do know that under certain circumstances, increased progesterone can produce hypertension.

Exactly, so why they are so coy about asking your sex?

In what way are they 'coy'?

And anyone got any ideas on the weird positioning of 'I've never had s period' at the top of the answers?

I would guess that it's starting from 0 and working up.

I would need some explanation, having read the options, of what they want the answer to be if I'm an adult woman, currently between periods, as the fact they have 'I'm currently having periods' and 'I'm not currently having periods' as distinct from 'I've stopped' and 'I've never had' periods makes me wonder if they're asking if I'm currently on a period now - but then they've used the plural rather than singular, so I don't know how they'd want me to answer.

And I wasn't complaining that some transwomen would say they have periods - I was mentioning it as a confounding factor. Odd to frame it as a complaint.

Exactly, so why they are so coy about asking your sex?

In what way are they 'coy'?

It's the first question they ask.

I know, it's a bit odd. Then I think if you say you're having periods there is a question about regularity which defines regular as "every 3-6 weeks". There was for me.

If it's about hormones what are they asking men

Do you get spontaneous erections
Are you able to maintain an erection
Do you have difficulty getting or maintaining an erection
Have you been diagnosed with low testostrrone
Are you on testosterone Therapy for low testosterone

Yeah right like that would EVER happen on an app like this!

And if it did I wouldn't have the slightest issue in responding (and no, the answer to all of those is not 'nothing wrong with me').

But what they are trying to investigate is the reason why women do better than men. There is a theory that this is due to oestrogen boosting the immune system, and so those questions seem to have been devised to give some indication of a particular respondent's likely oestrogen levels.

There is a counterpart theory that high testosterone levels weaken the immune system but so far they have not chose to investigate this.

presumably the sex of the subject, along with age will have been one of the first questions asked
having established OP is female, they won't be asking her about her erections or anything else that is a proxy for testosterone

Yes I agree, and erectile dysfunction is linked to cardiovascular disease which is a risk factor for covid so it's not unthinkable that they might want to explore it in future.

It was originally sex that was asked, yes. Then it was changed to 'gender'. Which, as I'm sure everyone understands, is a pretty meaningless term in this context.

YY Scrimps. There was another thread about this.

It's the first question they ask.

How does that make it 'coy'? Surely, if anything, asking it last would make it 'coy'.

It was originally sex that was asked, yes. Then it was changed to 'gender'.

I'm sorry but that's incorrect, it asks for both.

There is a counterpart theory that high testosterone levels weaken the immune system but so far they have not chose to investigate this.

That is being investigated, it's just not part of this survey because informal symptom questioning doesn't really establish testosterone deficiencies reliably and there is a clear self assessable symptom for women (menopause) which corresponds to a well defined hormonal change.

It was originally sex that was asked, yes. Then it was changed to 'gender

No it isn't. It asks for sex. Yes I know it says "assigned at birth" . It then asks for "gender" where you have 4 options.

Like it or loathe it- the change in question is clearly designed to capture correct information about trans people. For example, and I have tested this, Freddy McConnell, if Freddy were replying accurately would answer assigned female to "assigned at birth" and "male" for gender or a trans woman would answer the opposite- both would then get the questions about hormones, including the options about using hormones as part of transition.

Obviously I haven't reported anything about my fake test profiles.

How is using periods as a proxy for female hormone not the same as using erections as a proxy for male hormone.

TreestumpsAndTrampolines

I answered this the other day and there was definitely a question about regularity and frequency of periods. I think those options came up when I answered that I was still having periods.