Researchers hypothesize that the same male hormones that cause hair loss may be linked to the vulnerability of patients to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

As novel coronavirus continues its sweep across the globe, among the most confounding aspects of the pandemic has been why symptoms are so severe for some patients yet milder for many others.

Undoubtedly, age and underlying health conditions play a role—but they don’t account for fatalities among younger, otherwise healthy patients.

“…the scientific evidence gives us reason to believe that beardy, bald men may be more vulnerable to COVID-19 than other individuals.”

Physicians and scientists continue to publish data on cases, and one trend evident is that COVID-19 severity and fatalities tend to be greater among men than women. In one recent analysis of 13 US states that report numbers of deaths among men and women, men died more frequently in every case.

In a letter to the editor in the journal Dermatologic Therapy, Carlos Wambier, an assistant professor of dermatology and clinician educator at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School, and other researchers lay the groundwork for their new hypothesis.

Contributors to the letter are from New York University, Applied Biology, Inc., and universities in Spain, India, and Italy.

While more research is needed to test that hypothesis, Wambier says a link between androgen hormones and COVID-19 could help to explain the higher severity for men and have implications for how health care providers test and treat patients.

Here, he shares more about the journal letter and what it might mean, if confirmed, for both patients and physicians:

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