Why are women more prone to long Covid?
Women long-haulers outnumber men by 4 to 1.
Researchers indicate that one problem is that we don't research sex differences enough (or default to the idea that women just 'complain' of symptoms that aren't really acute)
From the article:
“Women have two copies of the X chromosome,” says Iwasaki. “And many of the genes that code for various parts of the immune system are located on that chromosome, which means different immune responses are expressed more strongly in women.”
Women of reproductive age are thought to have a more reactive immune response to infection. P
But it is also linked to a theory called the pregnancy compensation hypothesis, which suggests that women of reproductive age have more reactive immune responses to the presence of a pathogen, because their immune systems have evolved to support the heightened need for protection during pregnancy.
This robust immune response is thought to be one of the reasons why women are much less likely to die from Covid-19 during the acute phase of the infection – but it comes with a catch. One of the major theories for long Covid is that fragments of the virus manage to linger in remote pockets of the body, known as reservoirs, for many months. Iwasaki says that remnants of Sars-CoV-2 have been discovered in almost every tissue from the brain to the kidneys.
Because women react so strongly to the presence of a virus, some scientists think that these viral reservoirs are more likely to trigger waves of chronic inflammation throughout the body, leading to the symptoms of pain, fatigue and brain fog experienced by many with long Covid.
(MORE here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/13/why-are-women-more-prone-to-long-covid?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other )
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