An Israeli study, conducted this month by researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Shamir Medical Center, found that the amount of antibodies in recovering COVID-19 patients change according to age groups, gender, symptoms and time elapsed since vaccination.
The study, published in Medrxiv, used over 26,000 blood samples from recovering Coronavirus patients, both vaccinated and unvaccinated.
In the study, a difference in concentration of antibodies in the blood was found between vaccinated men and women.
In women aged 51 and older, the level of antibodies found was higher than men of the same ages. The study explained this by stating it might be related to level of estrogen hormone in women of these ages.
In addition, a higher concentration of antibodies was found in women as they get older from the age of 51, although a rise of antibodies in men can be seen from an earlier age of around 35.
The study notes this difference between men and women may be due to changes in levels of testosterone in males and its effect on the immune system.
More noticeable trends found in the study include that individuals who received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have four times the amount of antibodies of people who recovered from the virus, and a stronger immune response in general.
A high concentration of antibodies in young adults is, more often than not, a result of a strong immune response, which is in contrast to the same phenomenon seen in elders, which indicates an overreaction of the immune system, associated with severe diseases.
The study, headed by TAU's Head of the Computational Genomics Laboratory Prof. Noam Shomron and Shamir Medical Center's Dr. Adina Bar Chaim, concluded that while further research is required, they hope that the correlation of vaccines effectiveness with age and gender can be proved using a reliable measure in the future.
A quick explanation of the study's findings, by Prof. Noam Shomron, can be found below: