Man flu could be literal , after all . It seems that virus may in reality be acquire to infect men more severely than they infect cleaning lady . A new study , published inNature Communications , advise that there is an evolutionary pressure sensation on the organism to cause weaker symptom in charwoman , as it hold them more likely to be distribute .
The possibility goesthat it is advantageous for a computer virus to taint , but not of necessity harm , a woman because she has a greater chance of reach the computer virus on , from mother to child . For men , however , that insistence is not in the main there as there are fewer opportunities for the virus to be passed on , so the computer virus can go all out on the virile host , and as a result stimulate greater harm .
“ virus may be evolving to be less dangerous to women , looking to preserve the female population”explainedRoyal Holloway ’s Dr Francisco Úbeda . “ The reason why these illnesses are less virulent in women is that the virus wants to be passed from female parent to child , either through breastfeeding , or just through giving parentage . ”
It has long been observe that men be given to suffer worse infections from diseases than adult female . For good example , valet infected with the human papillomavirus are a disgraceful five times more likely than womanhood to develop cancer as a result . This has unremarkably been explained away by the subtle difference in the resistant systems between the two sexes , but it seems that there could be more going on .
To examine whether or not there would be an evolutionary pressure for a computer virus to do less harm to women than men , the research worker used numerical modeling . They found thatthere was indeed selective press for this to happen , and for the organisms to produce a lower mortality rate in women if the virus can be passed from mother to child .
“ Survival of the fittest is relevant to all organisms , not just animals and humans,”continuedDr Úbeda . “ It ’s totally probable that this sex - specific virulent behavior is happen to many other pathogens stimulate diseases . It ’s an splendid example of what evolutionary analysis can do for medical specialty . ”
Fascinatingly , this thrust for viruses that are spread between mother and minor could be what is drive the observed difference in the deadliness of Human T - cellular phone Lymphotropic Virus Type 1 ( human T-cell leukemia virus-1 ) in different component part of the world . In Japan , for example , HTLV-1 is up to 3.5 meter more potential to progress to become the deadly Adult T - cadre Leukaemia ( ATL ) in men than women , whereas , in the Caribbean , the likelihood of the virus progressing to ATL is equal between human and women . This could be down to the fact that in Japan , women wet-nurse their child for a much longer stop of clock time than they do in the Caribbean .
This latest inquiry could have profound influences for how doctor treat illness and disease in the futurity , orient the response to the gender and locating .
