Man flu DOES exist: Why women deal with a cold quicker than men REVEALED

A NEW study could prove that man flu is REAL – with evidence proving why colds hit men harder than women.

 

It's official: men do feel flu more than women

 

Scientists believe they have uncovered why women can battle through a cold better than men.

Oestrogen - the female sex hormone - may weaken the flu virus in women.

A virus infects the body by entering a cell and replicating itself - and is then passed on from person to person.

 

The virus’s ability to replicate in women is reduced by oestrogen

 

Although the hormone is found in men and women, the virus’s ability to replicate in women is reduced by oestrogen. 

The lesser the replication, the less likely the person suffering from the flu is able to pass it on to others, according to study author Professor Sabra Klein, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

In effect, the hormone shields women from feeling the full extent of the flu.

 

The flu virus replicates in the nasal passages

 

The study said: “This is the first study to identify the oestrogen receptor responsible for the antiviral effects of oestrogen’s, bringing us closer to understanding the mechanisms mediating this conserved antiviral effect of oestrogen’s.

"We see clinical potential in the finding that therapeutic oestrogen’s that are used for treating infertility and menopause may also protect against the flu."

The researchers tested the effect of the hormone of the influenza A virus - one of the strains that causes seasonal flu epidemics.

  

Other studies have shown the powerful antiviral effects of oestrogen on HIV, Ebola and hepatitis

 

They then carried out tests in the nasal cells - typically the cells where the virus infects first - and discovered that all three forms of oestrogen reduced virus replication in the female, but not male, nasal cells.

Other studies have shown the powerful antiviral effects of oestrogen on HIV, Ebola and hepatitis, Professor Klein added.

The findings were presented in American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology.