A while back, I wrote on an epidemic-related study that supposedly showed how obese people might be at higher risk of contracting a more severe form of Covid-19.
The study, conducted by Singapore’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, concluded that overweight Asians are three times as likely to require intensive care as their thinner counterparts.
Shocking, isn’t it? You can read all about it here.
But that, it seems, is not the end. As the ongoing epidemic looks set to become a mainstay for the next few months (or even years) at the very least, yet another demographic has come under scrutiny for its inadvertent risk amid the virus outbreak:
A demographic that might have a certain ‘Beijing 101’ saved on their contacts list.
Yes folks, lest you’ve yet to latch on…
I’m talking about a man’s most dreaded nightmare… hair loss.
Researchers Said Bald Man with COVID-19 More Likely to Be Hospitalised; FactCheck Says Otherwise
According to Daily Mail, a study has claimed that bald men are apparently more susceptible to the Coronavirus, being 40% more likely to end up in the hospital.
The hypothesis was derived from a study of 2,000 British men in hospital – 1,605 who tested negative, and 336 patients of a similar age and BMI who tested positive and were “hospitalised”.
Apparently, results showed that a fifth of the men with no hair swabbed positive, compared to 15 per cent of those who had a full crown. This led the involved researchers to conclude that bald men were 40 per cent more likely to test positive for Covid-19 in comparison to their hair-filled peers.
It should be noted that the study is not the first to draw the queer-sounding link between the two. The findings supposedly coincide with those made by Dr Carlos Wambier, a dermatologist at Brown University, Rhode Island.
In one of two studies conducted by the dermatologist, 79% of 122 men who swabbed positive (in three Madrid hospitals) was ascertained to be bald.
Following the British study’s results, experts have theorised that male hormones, which trigger hair loss in both genders, could play a part in helping the virus enter cells.
However, there is no supporting evidence behind the hypothesis.
Debunked?
Experts have since disagreed with the conclusion of the findings, stating that the evidence is “not terribly strong” and that there are many other factors that may explain the “phenomenon”. For instance, ethnicity has also been linked to a higher risk of severe Covid-19, but it did not seem to have been taken into account in the study.
They also raised its doubts over the hypothesis, stating that studies did not seem to adjust for age.
“That’s a problem when we consider that the age group most at risk from coronavirus complications is the over-70s,” the website wrote.
And it was a sentiment echoed by the authors of the original Madrid study.
“The precise AGA [androgenic alopecia, the type of baldness that most often affects men] rate in age-matched, not admitted covid-19 population is still unknown to draw further conclusions,” the authors said.
Which means that until more precise data can be derived, there is still no confirmed correlation between hair loss and severe coronavirus.