Females More Likely to Experience Long COVID Than Males, New Data Analysis of 1.3 Million Patients Reveals

Researchers from the Johnson & Johnson Office of the Chief Medical Officer Health of Women Team, who performed the analysis of data from approximately 1.3 million patients, observed females who have Long COVID are reporting various symptoms, which include ear, nose, and throat problems; mood, skin, neurological, gastrointestinal, and rheumatological diseases, and fatigue.

As specified in a report from EurekAlert!, the new study shows that females are substantially more likely to experience long COVID than males and suffer substantially from various symptoms.

Essentially, long COVID is a syndrome in which complications last longer than four weeks following the initial infection of COVID-19, sometimes for several months.

On the other hand, male patients were more likely to suffer from endocrine disorders like diabetes and kidney disorders.

Gender Differences in Long COVID Syndrome

In their research published in Current Medical Research and Opinion, the authors said knowledge about fundamental gender differences.

Differences in the function of the immune system between males and females could be an essential driver of gender differences in Long COVID syndrome.

The researchers found that females mount more robust and fast innate and adaptive immune responses, which can shield them from initial infection and severity.

Nevertheless, this difference can make females more susceptible to prolonged autoimmune diseases.

Long COVID Symptoms in Female Patients

As part of this review, the study investigators restricted their quest for academic research to those published from December 2019 to August 2020 for COVID-19 and from January 2020 to June 2021 for Long COVID syndrome.

When looking at the early onset of the virus, findings reveal those female patients were far more likely to suffer from mood disorders like depression, ear, nose, ad throat problems, musculoskeletal pain, and respiratory symptoms.

Meanwhile, male patients were most likely to experience renal disorders affecting the kidneys.

The researchers noted that this synthesis of the existing literature is among the few to break down the specific health condition that occurs as an outcome of COVID-related disease by gender.

Based on Gender-Disaggregated Data

Many studies have examined gender differences in hospitalization, admission to the ICU, ventilation support, and mortality.

Nonetheless, the authors reported the research on the specific conditions that result from the virus and its long-term impairments during previous COVID-19 outbreaks.

Consequently, differences in results between males and females infected with COVID-19 could have been anticipated.

Unfortunately, according to a related Medical Xpress report, most research did not analyze or report granular data by sex, which limited sex-specific clinical understandings that may be affecting treatment.

Ideally, gender-disaggregated data need to be made available even if it was the primary objective of the researcher. Therefore, other researchers can utilize the data to explore vital differences between the genders.

The paper notes, too, complicating factors worthy of additional research. Notably, women may be at higher risk of exposure to the virus in certain professions, like nursing and education.

Moreover, there may be differences in access to care based on gender that could impact the natural history of the virus, resulting in more complications and sequela.

The latter-mentioned serves as "a rallying cry," availability of sex-disaggregated data and international assessment is imperative if it can be ensured that disparate results in the disease course are dealt with.

Essentially, no research is complete unless the data becomes available to people searching for an answer to the question: "Does sex and gender matter?"

Related information about long COVID in females is shown on WDIV's YouTube video below:

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