For its Christmas edition, the BMJ returns to this major public health issue that is the “human flu”.
” I will die. Who hasn’t heard these words, muttered in a voice from beyond the grave from under the duvet? Faced with the slightest cold, men have the reputation of making tons of them. The concept, very much alive in Anglo-Saxon culture, even has a name in the language of Shakespeare: man flu, or “man flu”. A little weaklings, a little opportunistic, the men would overplay like an Italian footballer brushed against in the area.
Perhaps we should do away with this infamous concept. No doubt stung by his wife’s teasing, Dr. Kyle Sue, assistant professor of medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), took up the subject in the Christmas edition of British Medical Journal (in English). As the holidays approach, the prestigious British magazine is used to evoking fanciful subjects by mixing irony and medical rigor.
“The concept of ‘man flu’, as commonly defined, is potentially unfair,” concludes the doctor, somewhat sardonically. “Men may not exaggerate their symptoms but have a weaker immune response to respiratory viruses, leading to higher morbidity and mortality than women. »
Dirty immune blow
Indeed, men seem much more susceptible to infections, whether bacterial, viral or parasitic, both in terms of prevalence and severity of symptoms. Epidemiological studies show that men are more likely to die from the flu than women – with a 50% higher death rate between the ages of 50 and 64, according to US data (in English).
We also know that men generally respond less well to vaccines, such as those against influenza and yellow fever. Conversely, women are much more affected by autoimmune diseases, linked to an excessive and chronic immune reaction, such as allergic asthma or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. The immune systems of men and women thus have different thresholds of reactivity.
It’s hormonal, honey
As often, sex hormones are in the dock. Studies on mice show that female hormones (estrogen and progesterone) have an immunostimulating effect while testosterone tends on the contrary to lower the threshold of immune reactivity. This is true both for the innate response – the first line of defense against seasonal influenza – and for the adaptive response, at play after vaccination, when the pathogen is already known.
In short, everything leads us to believe that men are simply more likely to drool when they have a cold or the flu than to play divas on the verge of death. And the good Dr. Sue to conclude in these terms. “It might be time to set up ‘man-friendly’ spaces, equipped with huge television sets and rocking chairs, so that men can recover from the devastating effects of the man-in-all flu. safety and comfort. » A public health axis to be developed urgently.
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