Getting the flu, to most people, means one to two weeks of coughing, runny nose, sore throat, fever, muscle ache, fatigue and just feeling crummy overall.
In more serious cases, it can kill.
But how quickly one can recover from the flu may depend on your gender.
A flu shot may sting a little bit but the US CDC recommends a yearly flu vaccine as the first and most important step in protecting ourselves against flu viruses. (Photo: US Navy)
According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, past studies have indicated that women tend to recover from the flu slower than men, even when they have identical levels of the influenza virus in their bodies.
Conducting experiments on live mice and human cells, taken from human males with the flu virus, a team of scientists from Johns Hopkins have come-up with a possible reason why males recuperate faster.
They say it’s because men generate more of an important lung-healing protein, called amphiregulin than women.
They found the male mice recovered quicker than the females and male mice, who lacked the protein, had recovery times compared to the females.
A study detailing the researcher’s findings was recently published in the journal, Biology of Sex Differences.
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