We laugh at the first mention of it… it’s been a sign of male weakness for generations.
But now it seems that man flu could be real… we’re not joking.
Female academic Dr Amanda Ellison, a neuroscientist at Durham University, is putting forward the argument that men really do suffer more with coughs and colds despite being accused of faking it for sympathy.
Dr Ellison said men have more temperature receptors in the brain which causes them to experience the symptoms more acutely than ourselves.
Men and women both start out as equals in dealing with colds because the area is the same size in children’s brains.
But when the not-so-fairer sex hit puberty, testosterone starts to act on the area (known as the preoptic nucleus), making it larger.
“When you have a cold one of the things that happens is you get an increase in temperature to fight off the bugs,” Dr Ellison told the Daily Mail.
“The bugs can’t survive at higher temperatures. When your immune system is under attack the preoptic nucleus increases temperature to kill off the bugs.
“But men have more temperature receptors because that area of the brain is bigger in men than women.
“So men run a higher temperature and feel rougher – and if they complain they feel rough then maybe they’re right.”
Ah here!
We might just keep this one quiet… we really don’t want them to have another excuse so we have to mollycoddle them during their “misery”!
