Man-Flu: Does It Really Exist?

[Raistlin]

Men like to exaggerate their grumbling when cold and flu strike – or do they? We take a look at the latest evidence to find out if man-flu could really exist.

When women get a cold and start running a temperature, their convalescence is usually conducted with minimal fuss. With men, on the other hand, it’s typically a case of – how long do I have to live? The excessive whinging and feeling sorry for oneself is derogatorily known as ‘man-flu’, and when it strikes, it seems that no amount hot drinks can rescue men from their overstated misery. Or so the story goes, anyway. Recent research, however, suggests that we may have been too quick to judge men for their lack of resilience, and that there could be at least a hint of truth to the man-flu myth.

Magnified symptoms

Dr Amanda Ellison, a neuroscientist from Durham University, recently conducted research into how cold and flu bugs affect us differently, with some intriguing results. Dr Ellison found that men could be suffering more with coughs and colds because they have extra temperature receptors in the brain, and therefore experience worse symptoms.

When you get a cold, your body temperature rises to help your body fight off bacteria. The area of the brain that deals with this mechanism – called the preptic nucleus - is the same size in boys and girls, but when the former hit puberty, testosterone in the body makes it grow. Whether this magnifies the symptoms of flu in men is still up for debate, but Dr Ellison believes this could explain the onset of the much-maligned man-flu.

“It has yet to be proved that men actually get higher temperatures than women - you would have to control for an awful lot of things to prove that definitively. However, as men have a bigger area devoted to temperature regulation, it is equally plausible that they should cope better when they are fighting off a cold!”

Role reversal

Perhaps most intriguingly, research carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine challenges the very notion that men like to overplay their symptoms, while women carry on regardless.

The study showed that women are 16% more likely to say they are ill than men. Yup – you did read that correctly; when confronted by the onset of sniffles, it’s men – not women – who will in most cases soldier on.

This, of course, could also explain why men suffer more when flu does strike. Having left it too long before seeking treatment, perhaps men are exposing themselves to a much more virulent period of illness, though the lead researcher in this particular case, Dr Alma Adler, did say: “We haven’t found any evidence of ‘man-flu’ yet.”

So, does man-flu exist? Judging by all the latest evidence, it’s still up for debate. While it seems that women and men do indeed react differently to winter illnesses, it’s not clear how, and more importantly, why we suffer in our own peculiar ways.

The latest research suggests that women are more vulnerable to colds and flu in their early stages, as their immune systems go into overdrive in an attempt to shoo-away the worst of the symptoms. Men, meanwhile, are more likely to enter a period of denial, perhaps delaying treatment and making things worse for themselves as the condition develops.

Or, it could be that we’re just not in the mood to take out the rubbish. At the moment, nobody really knows. Now, where’s my paracetamol?

[TheSensibleCookie]

It's purely psychological.

I would doubt the credibility of any academic glorifying such a topic.