Women more able to fight off illness?

Men using home care may be less able to fight off illness than females are, it has been underlined.

Dr Ramona Scotland, at Queen Mary University of London, told a BBC Healthcheck podcast of research she had recently conducted on the subject.

She explained how different agents such as bacteria and fungi were used on rats and mice to stimulate an immune response in males and females.

The effect was seen to be less on females, who also experienced a much faster recovery.

Furthermore, in some cases the females did not appear to become ill at all, while males had a fever and were not feeling well at all.

"These mechanisms are certainly present in humans so therefore we suspect that difference is also there. How much of an impact that has on actual disease is something we are going to have to look at in future," she said.

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