What Is Man Flu?

Man flu really exists as women are proven to have stronger immune systems that can better fight off more bugs than men.

20:44 28 March 2016

Recent studies have confirmed that men have weaker immune systems when compared to women making the latter more prone to contracting flu.

 

However, although women’s more powerful immune system could easily shrug off bacteria and viruses, there is a downside to this, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have found.

 

Female’s strong immune system makes it more trigger happy and more likely to launch attacks on itself, causing auto-immune disease. This explains why such ailments are usually less common in men.

 

The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states: ‘Clinical studies have demonstrated that females have an hyper-responsive immune system than males following immune challenges.’

 

The authors added that because women have extra X chromosome, they produce more antibodies which ‘is immunologically advantageous, whereas males are more susceptible to bacterial and viral infections,’

 

But the authors add: ‘This strong female –specific immune response is not always beneficial and can result in auto immunity.’

 

Researcher Montserrat Anguera of the University of Pennsylvania said: ‘What caught my attention about autoimmunity and specifically lupus, was that there were genes on the X chromosome that were immunity related and that had been shown to have higher expression levels in lupus patients.’