A series of studies appears to show that bald men are at greater risk of a more severe response to Covid-19, The Telegraph reports. Professor Carlos Wambier of Brown University told The Telegraph: "We really think that baldness is a perfect predictor of severity."
It was already known that men suffer more severe reactions to coronavirus than women, and now it is being theorized that the difference is due to the presence of male hormones called androgens, which, incidentally, also play a part in hair loss.
If the theory is correct, this raises the possibility of using hormone-suppressing treatment to slow down the progression of the virus, as an Italian study appeared to show. There, men on androgen-deprivation therapy were found to be only a quarter as likely to contract coronavirus as men on other treatments.