Bald men are more likely to contract severe COVID-19 symptoms. A new theory has proposed that male hormones that cause baldness are also linked to severe coronavirus symptoms. Dr Carlos Wambier, assistant professor of dermatology and clinician-educator at Brown's University's Warren Alpert Medical School, who is the author of the report, says that this is because "the first step to the virus's entry into a cell is a 'bite' from a protease enzyme that is produced only by action of androgen hormones."
The same team has carried out two studies to test their hypothesis. In an earlier study, which was published in the American Academy of Dermatology Journal in May, Wambier and his team found that almost 80 per cent of 122 men who were COVID-19 positive and were admitted to three hospitals in Madrid, Spain were bald.
Another study that was published in April in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology found that of 41 male COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Spain, 29 were bald.
The link between baldness and the severity of COVID-19 is now being referred to as the “Gabrin Sign,” after bald, 60-year-old emergency room doctor Frank Gabrin, who died in New York City in late March from COVID-19.
If the link between androgens and COVID-19 is proven, antiandrogen drugs may be able to reduce the severity of the respiratory illness, Wambier pointed out.
