In places like the United Kingdom, they have an expression known as ‘man flu’. They use it to refer to men who seem to suffer more from viral infections like the flu, than women do. Here in the states, I’ve heard ladies refer to men as little babies, whiners and worse because they appear or complain more when they get sick than what many women do.

First let me say that these are generalized terms because I know some people, men and women, who are ready to head to the emergency room for the slightest illness and then there are people like myself that continue to work while sick and only go to the doctor if it’s truly necessary, which according to me, is very rare. But then I also grew up as a rodeo cowboy with the philosophy of ‘cowboy up’, which means if it hurts or you don’t feel good, suck it up, keep quiet and get back on the horse and back to work.

However, during my years as a manager/supervisor, overall, I would have to say that male employees missed more days being sick than female employees. Again, this is generalization.

So is there any merit to the concept that men actually get sicker from viral infections.

Studying the medical and scientific literature, Dr. Kyle Sue, a clinical assistant professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada says yes, there is evidence to support ‘man flu’.

In a recent report on her study, ‘man flu’ was defined as:

“‘Man flu’ refers to the idea that men may exaggerate the symptoms of a minor illness, such as a cold.”

In Sue’s research, it was discovered that men in general have weaker immune responses to the different viruses that cause colds, flu and other respiratory illnesses. The weaker immune response means that men have a higher risk of developing more serious symptoms than most women will have. It also means that men have a higher risk of death from these types of viral infections.

This was supported in a 2008 study that found that women developed or produced more antibodies after receiving a flu vaccine than men did who received the same vaccine.

A 2016 study yielded similar responses. In this study, researchers took nasal cells from men and women and then exposed all of them to estrogen before they were infected with a flu virus. The female nasal cells exposed to estrogen reduced the levels of the flu virus, but the male nasal cells showed no reduction in the levels of the flu virus, even when exposed to levels of estrogen prior to the infection.

In the research, Sue believed there may be evidence to suggest that the male hormone testosterone may actually weaken an immune response to flu and cold viruses.

Although more research is needed, Sue concluded that ‘man flu’ may actually be real and that men do suffer more severe symptoms to some respiratory viruses like those that cause the common cold, flu and flu-like illnesses.

Wives and girlfriends need to keep this in mind the next time their guy gets sick, He may not be a big baby (or maybe he is), he could be suffering more severe symptoms than the ladies do.