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Comment by connicpu | Hacker News Reader

It seems much more likely that the direct controller is sex hormone levels, not chromosomes. Though chromosomes may affect what levels of sex hormones your body produces naturally, hormones are what actually control dimorphism in the immune system[0]

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4251360/

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There's some research showing that estrogen/androgen receptor signalling plays a part in sex-differential disease severity in SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. Incidentally, i love how some suggested pharmacotherapeutic agents include, like, nonsteroidal antiandrogens, GnRHa's, straight-up estradiol, and, of all things, spironolactone.

https://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/10/6/779

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5450662/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7233687/

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajplung.001...

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.21.20179671v...

https://www.jimmunol.org/content/jimmunol/198/10/4046.full.p...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191632/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7363620/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11906-020-01073-x

Haha yeah Spironolactone is certainly a weird one. I don't quite understand how it suppresses testosterone myself, all I know is it made me and everyone I know who takes it crave all the salt in the world and have to pee 2x as much. (Taking it to suppress testosterone of course, I don't know anyone actually taking it to reduce their covid risk)

Quite an important distinction for trans and lots of intersex people (particularly those with receptor insensitivities), though I have not seen anything conclusive supporting one or the other, and usually the research into what is considered edge cases is unfortunately very limited :/

Higher innate immune cytokines in female patients was associated with worse disease progression, but not in male patients. This seem to indicate that the level of sex hormones for men is less relevant for cytokines, or at least those involved with covid-19 immune response.

Wouldn’t that make young males more susceptible if testosterone induces a more severe immune response?

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