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Preprint Age- and gender-related changes in the upper airways correla...

Abstract

It is known that individuals with relatively enlarged upper airways are more likely to have problems with impaired intranasal air conditioning, air filtration, and increased destructive impact of the dry, cold, and polluted air on the respiratory cells in the lower airways.

The results of the analysis of found data demonstrate that the progressive growth in the airways geometry and involution atrophy of the nasal mucosa with age correlates with progressive growth in hospitalizations and deaths involving COVID-19 and pneumonia in the United States.

Based on the preliminary analysis it was shown that age-, gender-, and even race-related changes in the geometrical structure of the upper airway of individuals and as a consequence the change in related physiological functions (efficacy of the air conditioning, filtration processes, total and regional deposition of inhaled air pollutants and infectious agents) can be associated with the virus managing to access the lower airways, ie lungs, and giving pneumonia and life-threatening SARS picture.

Thus, the structural differences in the upper airways, air pollution, and climatic/weather conditions as a set of influencing factors can have much more serious consequences for public health than it is commonly believed. This issue warrants further research in the context of COVID-19 and seasonality of respiratory infections in the world.