Why are people with hypertension at a greater risk of dying from the coronavirus?
My medical focus is at the nexus of these two diseases.
There are two facts you must understand in order to grasp why?
This relationship:
As other responders to this question have pointed out, both SARS and COVID-19 attach to human lung cells by the ACE2 cell surface receptor. The ACE2 receptor is one of two Angiotensin-converting enzymes, a key part of the renin-angiotensin system. The renin-angiotensin system a central regulator of blood pressure in the mammals. Get it wrong and blood pressure is wrong.
These receptors are found in the lungs, but also in the blood vessel walls and lining of the small intestines. If you recall, people with Covid-19 infection get cough and diarrhea sometimes.
Recently it was discovered that smokers increase the number of ACE2 receptors in their lungs too. More than 60% of male Chinese smoke cigarettes. This had made them easy targets for Covid-19.
Drugs known as ACE inhibitors are often prescribed to reduce blood pressure in patients. In patients with elevated blood pressure, called hypertensives, upregulation or increased expression of ACE2 receptors occurs in the body.
It doesn’t take a leap of the imagination to now make the connection between hypertension and increased susceptibility to COVID-19
At the time of this story, 99% of Italians dying from COVID-19 had one, or all three: hypertension, diabetes and/or heart disease. If you have read either of my books, you know that I have been saying this for years:
Taking diabetic medications or antihypertensive drugs do not address the fundamental problem at the root. If this were indeed the truth, then a well-controlled T2DM or a hypertensive patient with apparently normal blood pressure would not be at increased risk of heart attack or stroke. Diabetics take anti-diabetic medications but continue to slide, many suffering strokes and heart attacks.
Why? Because they have never been told to address the root, insulin resistance and getting it down naturally. If this of interest to you, both of my books are available on Amazon. (The FIRST Program and the Thin Prediabetic)
