This is due to special cell receptors: the ideal medium for the penetration of COVID-19
Every week, scientists receive more and more information about COVID-19, and this information is often very disturbing.
It has long been known that the risk of becoming a victim of coronavirus is unevenly distributed, but the main reasons for this are only beginning to be clarified by scientists.
For example, it is known that deaths among adolescents with coronavirus are much less common than among older patients. Also, male mortality significantly exceeds the same rates among women.
Some of the reasons for such indicators were understood initially. For example, scientists isolate several diseases at once, which at times increase the risk of dying from coronavirus. These are obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and chronic heart problems. As a rule, such problems are more common in older people than in young people. However, not all so simple.
An important role in the spread of the disease throughout the body is played by ACE-2 cellular receptors. It is through them that the coronavirus penetrates the body, and subsequently “captures” the cells. The more such receptors in the body, the more vulnerable a person is, scientists say.
Under normal conditions, these receptors are responsible for normalizing blood pressure. If the blood pressure is high, these receptors send signals to the blood vessels, and they expand. That is why such receptors are located throughout the body.
ACE-2 receptors are located on the cells of the mucous membrane of the nose, lungs, pancreas, kidneys and intestines, as well as in the mucous membrane of blood vessels, in the heart muscle, and circulate on blood cells.
Thus, during the coronavirus, they are dangerous for two reasons at once – the virus enters the body through the cells of the mucous membranes, and the blood cells are able to spread the disease throughout the body, causing side symptoms.
Coronavirus enters the cell precisely through these receptors, then it “reprograms” it and creates several copies of itself, which continue to capture cells using ACE-2 receptors. In the end, it destroys the cell from the inside, releasing even more copies of the virus into the body. Thus, extensive lesions arise, with which you have to fight with medication.
Scientists conducted a study and found out who has the most ACE-2 receptors. A study published last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association by Mount Sinai New York Hospital doctors showed that four-year-olds had fewer ACE-2 receptors in their nose than older people.
Also at risk are people with heart problems and high blood pressure. Their organisms specifically “produce” more of these receptors in order to maintain normal functioning. In addition, scientists have found that men with heart failure have more such receptors than women. This explains the high mortality from coronavirus among men.
A cardiologist at St. George’s NHS Trust University Hospital in South London and a spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology, Professor Sanjay Sharma, explains that fat cells are also involved in the production of such receptors.
“The more fat you have, the more ACE-2 receptors you have,” the scientist said. “Obesity is a chronic inflammatory condition and if you already have an inflammatory situation and disorders in the respiratory system (due to the pressure of your weight on the lungs and diaphragm ), and you are attacked by a virus, you have problems. ”
In the future, scientists plan to find out whether it is possible to act on these receptors and prevent the penetration of the virus into the cells. If a way is found to prevent this infection, this will be a major breakthrough in the fight against coronavirus.
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