All men know what I am talking about, feeling like a pile of donkey poop whenever even the common cold comes a knocking. And ladies, we understand where you are coming from, we tend to play things up a little bit, but it really does feel like we are dying. It's the man-flu, and can you believe that after all these years, it has actually proven itself to be true?

It turns out that some viruses like to wreak havoc inside men, more so than in women.

"It has already been established that men and women react to illness differently, but evidence shows that viruses themselves have evolved to affect the sexes differently," says Vincent Jansen from Royal Holloway University of London, School of Biological Sciences.

But what does that really mean?

After studying how the  HTLV-1 progressed in both men and women using subjects from the Caribbean and Japan, researchers came to a startling conclusion: Scientists believe the virus has become less fatal in women because the HTLV-1 virus can be passed through breastfeeding.

That might not make sense to you because of how scientifically technical it sounds, it goes right over my head, but the long and the short of it is, viruses tend to do more damage in men than women.  

"Pathogens are adapting to be less virulent in women to increase their chances of being passed on to the next generation during pregnancy, birth and infancy," says Dr. Francisco Ubeda of Royal Holloway. "Survival of the fittest is relevant to all organisms, not just animals and humans. It's entirely probable that this sex-specific virulent behavior is happening to many other pathogens causing diseases."

It appears that the man-flu is real, and that men are not just being lazy, soft individuals when they get sick.

What do you think? Have you ever had to experience someone with the man-flu?