Are women genetically superior?

Der Arzt, Wissenschaftler und Autor Sharon Moalem präsentiert in seinem neuen Buch eine faszinierende Theorie darüber, wie zwei X-chromosomen Frauen in allen Bereichen, vom Farbensehen bis zum Coronavirus, einen Vorteil verschaffen. GAIA VINCE nimmt diese

ADVANCED

Age and co-morbidity (pre-existing health conditions, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer) are the biggest risk factors, and that describes more older men than women. There may also be a sex difference in how people fight infection, due to immunological or hormonal differences — oestrogen is shown to increase the antiviral response of immune cells.

If women are presenting a more effective immune response to Covid-19, it could be because many of the genes that regulate the immune system are encoded on the X chromosome. Everybody gets one X chromosome at conception from their mother. However, sex is determined (for the vast majority) by the chromosome received from their father: females get an additional X, whereas males do not (they receive a Y). According to The Better Half, by American physician Sharon Moalem, having this second X chromosome gives women an immunological advantage. Every cell in a woman’s body has twice the number of X chromosomes as a man’s, and so twice the number of genes that can be called upon to regulate her immune response, he says. Only one of the X chromosomes in each cell will be active at any time, but having that diversity of options gives women a better immunological toolbox to fight infections.

Moalem describes the possession of XX chromosomes as “female genetic superiority”. In the case of Covid-19, for instance, the virus uses its spike protein as a key to “unlock” a receptor protein on the outside of our human cells, called ACE-2, and gain entry. As the ACE-2 protein is on the X chromosome, men will have identical versions of ACE-2 on all their cells — if the virus can unlock one, it can unlock all, he wrote recently in a Twitter thread. Women, though, have

by Sharon Moalem is published by Allen Lane (£20)