Women are significantly more likely than men to experience long-term symptoms of COVID-19, a new review suggests.

一项新的评估发现，女性患上慢性新冠肺炎的概率要比男性大得多。

Researchers from Johnson & Johnson's Office of the Chief Medical Officer for Women's Health analyzed data from studies involving 1.3 million patients.

女性健康Johnson & Johnson首席医学官员办公室的研究人员们分析了涉及130万患者的研究数据。

The results, published Tuesday in the journal Current Medical Research and Opinion, showed females are 22% more likely to develop long COVID than males.

研究结果于周二发表在《当代医学研究与见解》期刊上。研究表明，女性患慢性新冠肺炎的可能性要比男性高出22%。

"Knowledge about fundamental sex differences … of COVID-19 is crucial for the identification … of effective therapies and public health interventions that are inclusive of and sensitive to the potential differential treatment needs of both sexes," the authors said in a news release.

作者在新闻发布中表示：“了解新冠肺炎根本的性别差异对于发现有效的治疗方法以及公众健康干预非常重要。治疗方法和公众健康干预包括男女两性潜在的差异化治疗需求。”

Long COVID occurs when patients who have cleared the infection still have symptoms lasting more than four weeks after recovering. In some cases, these symptoms can persist for months, or even years.

慢性新冠肺炎是指患者在清除感染并在恢复后仍然具有症状且症状达4周以上。在有些情况下，这些症状可以持续数月，甚至数年。

Patients can experience a variety of lingering symptoms including fatigue, difficulty breathing, headaches, brain fog, joint and muscle pain, and continued loss of taste and smell, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

根据美国疾病控制预防中心的介绍，患者会经历各种迁延不愈的症状，比如疲惫、呼吸困难、头痛、脑雾、关节和肌肉疼痛、持续丧失味觉和嗅觉。

It's unclear what causes people to develop long COVID but there are several theories among experts including lingering virus in the body, damage to nerve pathways caused by the virus and the immune system remaining active following infection.

导致人们患上慢性新冠肺炎的原因目前尚不明朗，但是专家们对此提出数种理论，其中包括病毒持续在体内存在、病毒导致神经通路被破坏以及感染之后免疫系统仍然处于激活状态。

The study found the most common symptoms for women within four weeks of testing positive included ear, nose and throat (ENT) issues; muscle aches and pain; shortness of breath and psychiatric or mood disorders such as depression.

研究发现，女性在新冠检测阳性四周内最常出现的症状包括耳鼻喉科问题、肌肉酸痛、气短以及精神或心境障碍，比如抑郁。

Meanwhile, men were more likely to have renal disorders such as acute kidney injury.

与此同时，男性更容易出现肾脏方面的疾病，比如急性肾损伤。

Not only were symptoms during COVID-19 infection different among males and females but the symptoms were also different after the development of long COVID.

男性和女性不仅在感染新冠肺炎期间症状有所不同，在出现慢性新冠肺炎症状后，男女之间的症状表现也有所不同。

For women, they had higher rates of long-term symptoms including fatigue; ENT; gastrointestinal; neurological; skin and psychiatric and/or mood disorders.

对女性而言，出现比例比较高的慢性症状包括疲惫、耳鼻喉科症状、胃肠问题、神经问题、皮肤和精神和/或心境问题。

Women were at least twice as likely to have ENT long-term symptoms and 60% more likely to have gastrointestinal symptoms.

女性出现耳鼻喉科慢性症状的可能性至少是男性的2倍，出现胃肠症状的可能性比男性高60%。

On the other hand, men had higher rates of renal disorders as well as endocrine disorders, including diabetes.

另一方面，男性出现肾脏问题以及内分泌紊乱，包括糖尿病的概率则更高。

Several studies in the past have looked at differences in hospitalization, ICU admission and death from COVID-19 broken down by sex.

此前的数项研究分析了男性和女性在患上新冠肺炎后在住院率、进入ICU以及死亡率之间的差异。

But the researchers noted that, out of more than 600,000 articles analyzed for this study -- published between December 2019 and June 2021 -- only 35 provided data about COVID-19 symptoms and aftereffects in enough detail to understand how males and females may experience the disease differently.

但是研究人员强调表示，为开展研究而分析的60多万篇论文中（在2019年12月到2021年6月之间发表），只有35篇论文提供了足够详尽的有关新冠肺炎症状和新冠后遗症方面的数据，这些数据有助于了解男性和女性在患上新冠肺炎后会有哪些不同的身体反应。

"Unfortunately, most studies did not evaluate or report granular data by sex, which limited sex-specific clinical insights that may be impacting treatment," they wrote.

“不幸的是，绝大多数研究没有评估或报告按性别区分的细化数据，这就限制了具体涉及性别的临床分析并可能会对治疗产生影响，”他们写道。

It's unclear why women are more susceptible to long COVID than men, but the authors said it could be due to differences in how women's immune systems respond to infection compared to those of men.

为什么女性比男性更容易发展成慢性新冠肺炎目前还不明确，但是作者们表示，可能是由于女性免疫系统对感染的应答与男性有差异。

"Females mount more rapid and robust innate and adaptive immune responses, which can protect them from initial infection and severity," they wrote. "However, this same difference can render females more vulnerable to prolonged autoimmune-related diseases."

“女性具有更加迅速和强健的内在适应性免疫应答，这可以保护她们避免首次感染并发展为重症，”他们写道。“但是，同样的差异也使得女性更容易遭受慢性的自动免疫相关疾病。”

Additionally, the team said women may be at greater risk of COVID-19 because certain professions, such as nursing and education, are largely made up of females, which could -- in turn -- make them more likely to develop long COVID.

此外，团队还表示，由于某些职业，比如护士和教育，都是女性居多，因此女性感染新冠肺炎的风险更大，这反过来使得女性更容易发展为慢性新冠肺炎。

What's more, "there may be disparities in access to care based on gender that could affect the natural history of the disease, leading to more complications and [aftereffects]," the authors wrote in the release.

此外，“根据性别获得照护方面也存在差异，这可能会影响疾病的自然使，并导致出现更加严重的并发症和后果，”作者们在新闻稿中写道。

来源：ScienceAlert

翻译&编辑：上海译锐翻译

图片：Bing