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The term “man flu” takes a humorous poke at men with minor respiratory infections, such as colds, who supposedly exaggerate their symptoms.

According to the stereotype, a man lies on the sofa with a box of tissues. Meanwhile his female partner, also with a snotty nose, carries on working from home, doing the chores and looking after him.

But is man flu real? Is there a valid biological reason behind men’s symptoms or are men just malingering? And how does man flu differ from flu?

What are the similarities?

Man flu could refer to a number of respiratory infections – a cold, flu, even a mild case of COVID. So it’s difficult to compare man flu with flu.

But for simplicity, let’s say man flu is actually a cold. If that’s the case, man flu and flu have some similar features.

Both are caused by viruses (but different ones). Both are improved with rest, fluids, and if needed painkillers, throat lozenges or decongestants to manage symptoms.

Both can share similar symptoms. Typically, more severe symptoms such as fever, body aches, violent shivering and headaches are more common in flu (but sometimes occur in colds). Meanwhile sore throats, runny noses, congestion and sneezing are more common in colds. A cough is common in both.

What are the differences?

Flu is a more serious and sometimes fatal respiratory infection caused by the influenza virus. Colds are caused by various viruses such as rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, and common cold coronaviruses, and are rarely serious.
Colds tend to start gradually while flu tends to start abruptly.

Flu can be detected with laboratory or at-home tests. Man flu is not an official diagnosis.

Severe flu symptoms may be prevented with a vaccine, while cold symptoms cannot.

Serious flu infections may also be prevented or treated with antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu. There are no antivirals for colds.

OK, but is man flu real?

Again, let’s assume man flu is a cold. Do men really have worse colds than women? The picture is complicated.

One study, with the title “Man flu is not a thing”, did in fact show there were differences in men’s and women’s symptoms.

This study looked at symptoms of acute rhinosinusitis. That’s inflammation of the nasal passages and sinuses, which would explain a runny or stuffy nose, a sinus headache or face pain.

When researchers assessed participants at the start of the study, men and women had similar symptoms. But by days five and eight of the study, women had fewer or less-severe symptoms. In other words, women had recovered faster.

But when participants rated their own symptoms, we saw a somewhat different picture. Women rated their symptoms worse than how the researchers rated them at the start, but said they recovered more quickly.

All this suggests men were not exaggerating their symptoms and did indeed recover more slowly. It also suggests women feel their symptoms more strongly at the start.

Why is this happening?

It’s not straightforward to tease out what’s going on biologically.

There are differences in immune responses between men and women that provide a plausible reason for worse symptoms in men.

For instance, women generally produce antibodies more efficiently, so they respond more effectively to vaccination. Other aspects of women’s immune system also appear to work more strongly.

So why do women tend to have stronger immune responses overall? That’s probably partly because women have two X chromosomes while men have one. X chromosomes carry important immune function genes. This gives women the benefit of immune-related genes from two different chromosomes.

Oestrogen (the female sex hormone) also seems to strengthen the immune response, and as levels vary throughout the lifespan, so does the strength of women’s immune systems.

Men are certainly more likely to die from some infectious diseases, such as COVID. But the picture is less clear with other infections such as the flu, where the incidence and mortality between men and women varies widely between countries and particular flu subtypes and outbreaks.

Infection rates and outcomes in men and women can also depend on the way a virus is transmitted, the person’s age, and social and behavioural factors.

For instance, women seem to be more likely to practice protective behaviours such as washing their hands, wearing masks or avoiding crowded indoor spaces. Women are also more likely to seek medical care when ill.

So men aren’t faking it?

Some evidence suggests men are not over-reporting symptoms, and may take longer to clear an infection. So they may experience man flu more harshly than women with a cold.

So cut the men in your life some slack. If they are sick, gender stereotyping is unhelpful, and may discourage men from seeking medical advice.

Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Every few weeks or months, the media reports on a new study that tantalisingly dangles the possibility of a new drug to give us longer, healthier lives.

The latest study centres around a drug involved in targeting interleukin-11, a protein involved in inflammation. Blocking this protein appeared to help mice stave off disease and extend their life by more than 20%.

If only defying the ravages of time could be achieved through such a simple and effort-free way – by taking a pill. But as is so often the case, the real-world significance of these findings falls a fair way short of the hype.

The role of inflammation in disease and ageing

Chronic inflammation in the body plays a role in causing disease and accelerating ageing. In fact, a relatively new label has been coined to represent this: “inflammaging”.

While acute inflammation is an important response to infection or injury, if inflammation persists in the body, it can be very damaging.

A number of lifestyle, environmental and societal drivers contribute to chronic inflammation in the modern world. These are largely the factors we already know are associated with disease and ageing, including poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity, stress, lack of sleep, lack of social connection and pollution.

While addressing these issues directly is one of the keys to addressing chronic inflammation, disease and ageing, there are a number of research groups also exploring how to treat chronic inflammation with pharmaceuticals. Their goal is to target and modify the molecular and chemical pathways involved in the inflammatory process itself.

What the latest research shows

This new interleukin-11 research was conducted in mice and involved a number of separate components.

In one component of this research, interleukin-11 was genetically knocked out in mice. This means the gene for this chemical mediator was removed from these mice, resulting in the mice no longer being able to produce this mediator at all.

In this part of the study, the mice’s lives were extended by over 20%, on average.

Another component of this research involved treating older mice with a drug that blocks interleukin-11.

Injecting this drug into 75-week old mice (equivalent to 55-year-old humans) was found to extend the life of mice by 22-25%.

These treated mice were less likely to get cancer and had lower cholesterol levels, lower body weight and improved muscle strength and metabolism.

From these combined results, the authors concluded, quite reasonably, that blocking interleukin-11 may potentially be a key to mitigating age-related health effects and improving lifespan in both mice and humans.

Why you shouldn’t be getting excited just yet

There are several reasons to be cautious of these findings.

First and most importantly, this was a study in mice. It may be stating the obvious, but mice are very different to humans. As such, this finding in a mouse model is a long way down the evidence hierarchy in terms of its weight.

Research shows only about 5% of promising findings in animals carry over to humans. Put another way, approximately 95% of promising findings in animals may not be translated to specific therapies for humans.

Second, this is only one study. Ideally, we would be looking to have these findings confirmed by other researchers before even considering moving on to the next stage in the knowledge discovery process and examining whether these findings may be true for humans.

We generally require a larger body of evidence before we get too excited about any new research findings and even consider the possibility of human trials.

Third, even if everything remains positive and follow-up studies support the findings of this current study, it can take decades for a new finding like this to be translated to successful therapies in humans.

Until then, we can focus on doing the things we already know make a huge difference to health and longevity: eating well, exercising, maintaining a healthy weight, reducing stress and nurturing social relationships.

Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.