Over the past few months, medical professionals have been slowly noticing an overrepresentation of bald men in COVID treatment facilities. A team of Spanish researchers were curious, so did a little bit of digging. They found that from a sample of 122 male COVID-19 patients, 79 percent were bald. Soon after, a report published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology also found that there was a distinct lack of hair amongst COVID hospital admittees.
This leads us to one, resounding conclusion: bald guys’ mad testosterone levels are the perfect gateway for 2020’s title virus.
Bad news for all our follicly challenged friends out there: turns out that you’re a whole lot more likely to catch COVID-19 than the average Joe.
In an article for The Conversation, Professor of Genetics and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at Melbourne’s La Trobe University Jenny Graves theorises that there is a very plausible link between the science behind male pattern hair loss and vulnerability to COVID-19. Considered the primary cause of male hair loss, studies have shown that the high levels of the ‘androgen’ sex hormones in bald men could help mediate the entry of the virus into cells. Essentially creating the perfect storm for severe infection.
As always, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for all the bald men out there. While your risk of infection could be higher, and you’ll have to tread very carefully as we ease back into normality, it’s because you’ve got Chad levels of testosterone.
While Graves notes that a lot more research needs to be done before anything is set in stone, she suggests that there could be a link between anti-androgens and androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and future treatment routes for the virus. Who knew that bald men would be the answers to our troubles?
