Man Flu: Could estrogen be the medicine of the future?
updated the 20 January 2016 à 14:41The notion of men being the worse sufferer of the flu virus has been popular across all cultures. Why would it not occur in women as well—let’s find out.
Man flu is a phrase used to refer to the exaggerated idea of men having a cold or flu. Regardless of many scientific reasons and evidence, the idea is still prevalent and it has also been a controversial issue prevailing in the advertising and medical industry.
From a recent TIME article, a recent study in American Journal of Physiology suggests that particular estrogen-based compounds make women more resistant to flu viruses. Not surprising – from the fact that estrogen is a female hormone.
Don’t get it wrong; the study itself did not prove that women exposed to the flu were any less prone to fall ill than men. This is because the researchers only studied cells from nasal passages of both men and women in the lab dish.
What it did suggest is that there might actually be something about the female hormonal physiology that we could use to find new ways in fighting against the flu.
Another good news is there’s some investigation that reveals a connection between estrogen and our immune system. As such, as women’s levels of estrogen changes throughout the course of life (pregnancy or menopause), women’s inflammatory (part of the immune system) responses could change as well.
Looking towards the future, we could see if injecting estrogen-related agents to flu medicines would help the male counterparts. For now, more detailed research and using human volunteers could be done instead of working from the lab dish.
Sharon Salim
Photo: Getty Images
