Long COVID Rates Higher in Women: Evidence Grows

Publication date: Jul 03, 2025

For Soares and many other women with long COVID, it also included sudden menstrual changes that exacerbated her other symptoms. It just baffled me, said Soares, now 40. If we understood better the biologic mechanisms contributing to sex specificity, I think the question is, could we better stratify who were worried about developing long COVID? One of the reasons Iwasakis lab is looking at testosterone closely is because anecdotal evidence from female-to-male trans individuals indicates that testosterone therapy improved their long COVID symptoms significantly. Even after adjusting for clinical and demographic factors, women had a 31%-44% higher likelihood of developing long COVID than men. By August, she was bedbound. What began as piercing migraines quickly escalated into a cascade of long COVID symptoms gastrointestinal distress, sleeplessness, joint and muscle pain, and crushing fatigue. It also raises the possibility that hormone therapy could help. However, patients and advocates say its also important to consider socioeconomic factors in the trans community. If we can order a blood test and say somebody has a long COVID because of these values, then suddenly the diseases become medically explainable, Iwasaki added.

Semantics

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