Where does this news come from?
On November 29, 2023, science reporter Martijn Peters investigated for Het Laatste Nieuws whether the ‘man flu’ or ‘man flu’ is real. According to recent studies:
do men have the flu more symptoms;to recover them slower; they end up in it more often Hopital.
There might even be more deaths are among men. These differences could be due to differences in the immune system of men and women.
Is the name ‘man flu’ justified, or does it exist without any scientific basis?
Bron
How should you interpret this news? What is it?
Of man flu of ‘man flu‘ is an informal term defined as ‘a cold or similar mild ailment, experienced by a man who is inclined to exaggerate the severity of the symptoms’ (2). Flu comes from influenza, another name for influenza.
What are the differences between men and women?
Although there no clear scientific conclusion yet is over, the entry of the flu virus into the body would be a different effect in men than in women (1, 3-5). There are a number of options for this explanations.
Sex hormones have an influence on our immune system. This has been shown in mice estrogen and testosterone It strengthen immune system during a flu infection (3, 6). We do not know whether this also applies to people. This certainly applies not for all infections. For example, testosterone would suppress the immune system in malaria or tuberculosis (7). Age: Women are generally sicker and more likely to die from flu (not men, as the newspaper article (1) claims). However, if we also look at the age differences look, boys are more often seriously ill before puberty, while women often become more seriously ill during their childbearing years. These differences are not only determined by increased risk of more serious forms of flu (4-6) in covid in pregnancybut also through sex hormones (4). Women’s immune systems respond more strongly to the flu vaccine. This could mean that they become less ill with the flu than men who have received the same vaccine (4, 6).
There are also a number of other possible differences between men and women:
Behaviour: Men and women behave differently, which means they come into more or less contact with the flu virus. For example, a healthcare provider, teacher or childcare worker is more often female and has a higher risk of contracting the flu due to her profession (4, 5). The number of symptoms and the duration of the diseaseMen would report fewer symptoms to the doctor than women (5, 8). Women would feel sick for less time than men (3, 8). More research needed
There may indeed be differences between men and women in the case of a flu infection. It depends on how sick you feel various factors off. There is no scientific evidence that men exaggerate symptoms, so the idea of the ‘man flu’ doesn’t seem entirely fair. Existing research already provides a number of possible explanations, but more research is desirable to better understand why men and women respond differently to influenza (4).
Conclusion
A flu infection progresses differently in men than in women due to the influence of various factors, including sex hormones, age and vaccination status. For example, sex hormones influence the immune system. There is no scientific evidence that men exaggerate symptoms. The idea of the ‘man flu’ therefore does not seem entirely fair. Moreover, more women die from flu than men.
References (1) (2) Oxford Dictionaries. Man flu. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/man_flu. (3) Kyle Sue. The science behind “man flu”, BMJ 2017; 359 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j5560(4) World Health Organization. Sex, gender, and influenza. WHO Press, 2010.(5) Giurgea et al. Sex Differences in Influenza: The Challenge Study Experience, J Infect Dis, 2022 Feb 15;225(4):715-722. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiab422.(6) Morgan et al. The intersection of sex and gender in the treatment of influenza, Curr Opin Virol. 2019 April ; 35: 35–41. doi:10.1016/j.coviro.2019.02.009. (7) Giefing-Kröll et al. How sex and age affect immune responses, susceptibility to infections, and response to vaccination, Aging Cell (2015) 14, pp309–321. Doi: 10.1111/acel.12326(8) Riedl et al. Man flu is not a thing – Gender-specific secondary analysis of a prospective randomized-controlled trial for acute rhinosinusitis, J Psychosom Res, 2022 Dec:163:111047. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2022.111047(9) McClelland et al. Gender specific differences in the immune response to infection, Arch Immunol Ther Exp (Warsz). 2011 Jun;59(3):203-13. DOI: 10.1007/s00005-011-0124-3
2023-12-11 10:00:24
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