COVID‐19 is an emergent disease of aging
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
COVID‐19 is an ongoing pandemic caused by the SARS‐CoV‐2 coronavirus that poses one of the greatest challenges to public health in recent years. SARS‐CoV‐2 is known to preferentially target older subjects and those with pre‐existing conditions, but the reason for this age dependence is unclear. Here, we found that the case fatality rate for COVID‐19 grows exponentially with age in all countries tested, with the doubling time approaching that of all‐cause human mortality. In addition, men and those with multiple age‐related diseases are characterized by increased mortality. Moreover, similar mortality patterns were found for all‐cause pneumonia. We further report that the gene expression of ACE2, the SARS‐CoV‐2 receptor, grows in the lung with age, except for subjects on a ventilator. Together, our findings establish COVID‐19 as an emergent disease of aging, and age and age‐related diseases as its major risk factors. In turn, this suggests that COVID‐19, and deadly respiratory diseases in general, may be targeted, in addition to antiviral approaches, by approaches that target the aging process.
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In data from Wuhan, age was the main risk factor for COVID-19 progression to acute respiratory distress syndrome and end-organ failure.
“data from Wuhan, China showed that age was the primary risk factor associated with COVID-19 progression to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and end-organ failure7”
From SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 and the aging immune system (2021) · cites this paper as [8]
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- Authors
- Santesmasses, D., Castro, J. P., Zenin, A. A., Shindyapina, A. V., Gerashchenko, M. V., Zhang, B., Kerepesi, C., Yim, S. H., Fedichev, P. O., & Gladyshev, V. N.
- Affiliations
- Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
- Lomonosov Moscow State University (RU)
- Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (RU)
- Corresponding author
- Gladyshev, Vadim N.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Aging Cell
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2020-10
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- e13230-e13230
- ISSN
- 1474-9718 (ISSN-L)
- 1474-9726
- PMC
- PMC7576244
- OpenAlex
- W3091629566
- Cited by
- 172
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 20
- FWCI
- 4.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Aging Cell (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- medRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (AG067782)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM065204)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › COVID-19 Clinical Research Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › COVID-19 epidemiological studies
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, aging, age-related diseases, case fatality rate, mortality, sex differences, ACE2 gene expression, lung aging, pneumonia, ventilator use, age dependence, respiratory diseases
- MeSH terms
- Betacoronavirus, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Age Factors, Aged, Aging, Female, Humans, Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A, Male, Pneumonia, Viral, Sex Factors, Global Health, Coronavirus Infections, Pandemics
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