Is there any truth to the 'man flu'?

It's that time of year where winter colds are doing the rounds and the term 'man flu' often comes up to poke fun at symptoms which are seemingly exaggerated by men.

But is there any merit to it?

Some research indicates symptoms are not any worse for men, but it may take them longer to recover.

Thea van de Mortel is a nursing professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, and she's been trying to find out.

Van de Mortel explains what man flu is.

"The Oxford dictionary definition basically is that men, you know with a minor respiratory infection like a cold exaggerate their symptoms so you see them lying on the couch with a box of tissues, you know while their partner runs around, you know scurries around and looks after them."

A study has looked at men and women with acute rhinosinusitis which has symptoms such as a stuffy nose and headache, she said.

The study took baseline symptoms from people with the condition on day five and day eight, she said.

Objective observers rated the person's symptoms on a scale and the people themselves also had to rate how bad their symptoms were.

"What they found is that both men and women were rated similarly by the assessors in terms of the severity of their symptoms at baseline, but men rated their symptoms similarly to the other observers - so it didn't look like they were inflating their symptoms."

The survey found that over a period of five to eight days women's symptoms abated more quickly and that was reported by both the observers and the women themselves, she said.

"So they [women] got better quicker effectively."

Van de Mortel said there was a good biological basis for this.

"Women are known to have stronger immune systems, partly probably because we have two x chromosomes and the x chromosomes carry immune genes where as men only have one, cause you know men have xy and women have xx."

It was not helpful to stereotype men as "you're a weakling if you sit on the couch and you're just making it all up" in terms of trying to encourage them get them to get the medical care they might need, she said.

"There's a number of different infectious diseases where men have worse outcomes than women but they also, on the other side of the coin, are much less likely to go and see a medical professional to get help."

The Covid-19 mortality rate was considerably higher for men than for women and that was the case with some other infectious diseases as well, she said.

Men also have higher rates of picking up infections, she said.

"Women are more risk averse so they tend to wash their hands more, you know they wear masks more etc."