Sex-specific differences in physiological parameters related to SARS-CoV-2 infections among a national cohort (COVI-GAPP study).

Considering sex as a biological variable in modern digital health solutions, we investigated sex-specific differences in the trajectory of four physiological parameters across a COVID-19 infection. A wearable medical device measured breathing rate, heart rate, heart rate variability, and wrist skin temperature in 1163 participants (mean age = 44.1 years, standard deviation [SD] = 5.6; 667 [57%] females). Participants reported daily symptoms and confounders in a complementary app. A machine learning algorithm retrospectively ingested daily biophysical parameters to detect COVID-19 infections. COVID-19 serology samples were collected from all participants at baseline and follow-up. We analysed potential sex-specific differences in physiology and antibody titres using multilevel modelling and t-tests. Over 1.5 million hours of physiological data were recorded. During the symptomatic period of infection, men demonstrated larger increases in skin temperature, breathing rate, and heart rate as well as larger decreases in heart rate variability than women. The COVID-19 infection detection algorithm performed similarly well for men and women. Our study belongs to the first research to provide evidence for differential physiological responses to COVID-19 between females and males, highlighting the potential of wearable technology to inform future precision medicine approaches.
Competing Interests: The authors have read the journal’s policy and have the following competing interests: Lorenz Risch, and Martin Risch are key shareholders of the Dr Risch Medical Laboratory. David Conen has received consulting fees from Roche Diagnostics, outside of the current work. Andjela Markovic, Vladimir Kovacevic, Martina Rothenbühler, Brianna Goodale and Maureen Cronin are past employees of Ava AG. Brianna Goodale and Timo Brakenhoff are current employees of Julius Clinical BV. Billy Franks is a former employee of Julius Clinical BV and now an employee of Haleon. Paul Klaver and Duco Veen are former employees of Julius Clinical BV. Marianna Mitratza is a current employee of P95 CVBA. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare. These competing interests do not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
(Copyright: © 2024 Grossmann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)