Amy Oshier
This is really a thing. Ask any woman and they will tell you guys just can’t handle a cold. They can be real babies in fact. It turns out, doctors see it too and even have a name for it: The Man Cold.
Differences in behavior, say complaining more along with throwing in the towel and throwing themself into bed, is not a clinical diagnosis. No, the desire to be babied is not a gender thing in itself, it is personality-driven. But, and there’s a big but, some studies reveal that men may actually have more symptoms than women when it come to cold and flu.
Kim Templeton is an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Kansas Hospital, who happens to have studied gender differences in health. Dr. Templeton has looked. extensively at everything from nuances in sports injuries between males and females, as well as pain issues, which flows right into how the sexes differ in managing common illnesses.
“Regarding colds, there may be some impact of sex,” says Templeton. She attributes this finding partly to estrogen, which of course is the sex-based hormone responsible for the female reproductive system. In the simplest of terms, Templeton says estrogen slows down how fast a virus can multiply. In turn, by slowing down its replication, it may slow down the illness. It’s been substantiated with the flu and the same is suspected with a cold. So, it may be women don’t get quite so sick.
In addition, her research looks at theories suggesting the area of the brain that controls body temperature in men is greater than what is found in women. Again due to sex hormones, in this instance male-related testosterone. So the more efficient body temp regulation may lead to higher fevers in men. Making them feel worse.
It remains to be seen how much these things means in physical well-being. Likely somewhere in the middle. Countless studies show that relatively speaking, women are much more likely to downplay illness than men. With heart attacks for example, it is known the statistically there is a gender gap in women being less likely to show up at the emergency room. Or if they do, they are less likely to mention they fear a heart attack. Instead, they may chalk their symptoms up to indigestion or another condition.
So it is not out of the realm of possibility that women may muscle through their day, in spite of a minor sickness like a cold. While a man is culturally conditioned to rest up and get better. Sorry, guys, we see you.
