Bald men could die more from COVID-19 as a new study has revealed that they may be at higher risk of suffering from severe symptoms, odunews.com reports.
Carlos Wambier, a researcher at Brown University, told the Daily Telegraph he thinks “baldness is a perfect predictor of severity” of coronavirus.
However, other medical professionals have urged caution and said much more evidence is needed to support his claim.
Some researchers are suggesting baldness should be considered a risk factor called the “Gabrin sign”, after the first US physician to die of Covid-19 in the United States, Dr Frank Gabrin, who was bald.
The lead author of the key study behind the association, Professor Carlos Wambier of Brown University, told The Telegraph: “We really think that baldness is a perfect predictor of severity.”
Data since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, in January has shown that men are more likely to die after getting coronavirus. In the UK, a report this week from Public Health England found that working-age males were twice as likely as females to die after being diagnosed with Covid-19.
According to the Telegraph, Prof Wambier conducted two studies in Spain, from which he concluded that a disproportionate number of bald men were taken to hospital with the virus.
Of the 41 patients he examined in his first study, 71 per cent of them had male pattern baldness, a higher percentage than the background rate for baldness in men of a similar age.
In a further study, which was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Professor Wambier found almost 80 per cent of 122 male Covid-19 patients in Madrid were bald.
“We think androgens or male hormones are definitely the gateway for the virus to enter our cells,” he said.
