“Honey I’m dying”.
Now naturally as man you would expect a little sympathy, a caring shoulder, a cup of Barry’s placed strategically and most importantly quietly in the lamh, yet how is it that when man is struck down with a life-threatening disease we are heckled by our female loved ones with the “oh typical man” jibe.
I have taken a hurl to the head, I have had limbs broken, nursed the heaviest of hangovers and yet still with manly vigour proceeded with my daily masculine-chores, because that’s what we do, we are men after all. However I know from personal experience (in fact in the past few miserable days) that there is one condition specific to our side of the species that paralyses us with such sheer pain that it renders us powerless, motionless, and is considered to be more painful than the act of childbirth itself! - at least with child birth it's all done and dusted in a few hours, this infliction can last for weeks - I speak of Man Flu, I can feel your sympathetic shudder from here.
Man Flu is a crippling and debilitating disorder indiscriminately striking down us male members of the human species, and without any advance warning. There is a derogatory definition for the disease that refers to the idea that when men have a cold, we exaggerate (as if!) and claim we have the flu, that man flu is actually just the common cold in disguise, but with a bit of extra drama thrown in for good measure. But we know that it is not 'just a cold' and we do not 'moan' when we have it, we may however emit involuntary groans of agony that are entirely in proportion to the unbearable pain that we are in.
As the name on the tin suggests women cannot contract ‘our’ flu, at worst they suffer from what is medically recognised as a MGS - 'Mild Girly Sniffle' – which, if a man caught, he would still be able to run, throw a ball, tear the phone book in half and compete in all other kinds of gladiatorial activities. Our illness is often looked upon with a sceptical raised eyebrow by females but recent findings have disclosed that man flu is known to exclusively attack the XY chromosome carrier - Man.
The expression man flu has been around since the beginning of the noughties, but gained more popular exposure in 2006 when the British magazine Nuts claimed the condition really did exist after conducting a poll of over 2000 of its (largely male) readers. Though clearly not intended to be a serious medical health survey, the article was subsequently seized upon across the media, thereby securing the future of the expression ‘man flu’.
Scientific studies have now shown that men tend to be more exposed to infection risk than women and when they become infected their symptoms tend to be more severe and longer lasting: this has probably led to the so-called man flu phenomenon.
“Evolutionary factors and hormonal differences may make males more susceptible to infection than females”, says a Cambridge University team. Dr Olivier Restif, a Royal Society University Research Fellow, and Professor William Amos at the University of Cambridge developed a mathematical model to investigate why men appear to be the weaker sex where disease is concerned, and why differences between male and female responses to infection may have evolved.
Dr Restif said: "Our results show that, under a range of genetic and ecological constraints, males and females can evolve different levels of immune defences, sometimes at odds with intuitive expectations." He said that maintaining the ability to mate was more important to men than getting better, yet for women it was the other way around.
Their theory, outlined in a scientific journal, suggests there is a trade-off between a strong immune system and reproductive success. Across a range of animal species, males tend to be the 'weaker sex' in terms of immune defences, says the Cambridge team. This is usually explained by the difference in hormones. High testosterone levels, they say, lead to more coughs and colds. The result showed that while the more adventurous lifestyle of males means that they are more exposed to infection, it also, paradoxically, leads to them having lower immunity.
A similar study conducted in Canada by Dr Maya Saleh, of McGill University in Montreal indicated that the female sex hormone oestrogen gave women's immune systems a further advantage at fighting off infection. The research looked at an enzyme, caspase-12, which has been proved to raise the risk of infection by stopping inflammation – something the body uses to fight disease. Male mice with the enzyme got sick, but the females did not. Dr Maya said the finding was also likely to apply to humans, which could lead to immunity-boosting drugs containing oestrogen being marketed towards men. Dr. Maya went on to say that “we think nature devised this strategy to protect the reproductive role of the female body and keep the human race going, it just dropped the mechanism from the male sex.”
Figures have shown that women not only have a more powerful immune system but take less days off sick from work with 30% of men staying at home with colds and flu, compared to just 22% of women. But in our defence men suffering from man flu want nothing more than to get out of bed and come to work, but they are too selfless to risk spreading this awful condition amongst their male friends and colleagues. In this sense, they are the greatest heroes this country has ever known.
We also have a slower recovery rate from the disease than women do from the common cold, with the effects lingering for days and days, compared with just a few hours for the common cold. If a man is not permitted the correct period of convalescence following an attack of man flu he can sink back into a critical condition. Essentially, lack of sympathy from females will further advance the adverse symptoms of the man flu.
Frequently, following a period of man flu, females close to you may also start to show symptoms such as a runny nose and aching joints. This is, of course, the common cold and is not to be confused with man flu. By far, the best way for her to deal with this is carry on with her normal day to day routine as if the cold wasn't there. After all, it's hardly man flu, is it?!?
