In a Word . . . Influenza. And the science behind man flu

I know the feeling. That unbidden serenity that descends from nowhere and rests on my soul as though to the manner called.

It remains there with an ease comparable only to the second evening of an appalling hangover when the body finally surrenders trauma, water stays down, and eyelids become sufficiently moist to allow for an unrestrained blink. There may even be an appetite for lettuce, possibly a tomato.

But I don’t have a hangover. I haven’t even had a drink. Then people begin to tell me how well I’m looking. It’s then I know. I’m sick.

But not quite yet. Before people do so there is that inexplicable phase of not feeling good at all but with no obvious reason under the sun. Following which, confirmation of how well I look tells me I have it – man-flu!

You may scoff. You may belong to the legions who say there is no such thing, that man-flu belongs with the leprechauns, the Pooka and the tooth fairy, but you are wrong and now it can be proven.

Earlier this year a study in the American Journal of Physiology – Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology laid waste to the sceptics, generally found among the increasingly unfairer sex. And it has everything to do with biology's preference for woman.

The US study found that lack of the female hormone oestrogen in men means we poor dears are less resistant to the flu virus. So no more sniggering there, girls. More pity, pity please. More tender loving care.

In order to see if influenza A infected men and women differently, a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland intentionally infected nasal cells – those primarily targeted by the flu virus – in male and female donors. Working on a hunch, they exposed the uninfected nasal cells to oestrogen and then to the flu virus.

They found that female cells treated with oestrogen prior to infection showed a far greater resistance to infection than male cells also treated with oestrogen, suggesting that oestrogen has female-specific antiviral qualities which may protect women from flu, but not men. Woe is us.

So girls please recognise man-flu for the crippling and debilitating disorder it is, which indiscriminately strikes us men down uninvited.

Influenza, from Italian (influenza) and Latin influentia, arising from idea of astral or occult influence.

[ inaword@irishtimes.com ]