Many women already know the men in their lives will hold off reporting ill health to a doctor until symptoms meet crisis point. But new research from the UK has found that while women are more likely to report illness, they’re less likely to die from their reported bad health. It’s better to be safe than sorry, we say!
The UK’s Office for National Statistics tracked how 750,000 people from the 2001 Census rated their own health between 2001 and 2006, the UK’s Daily Mail reported.
“Women were more likely than men to report that they were in ‘not good’ or ‘fairly good’ health, but they were less likely to die during the follow-up period,” the Office for National Statistics said.
Interestingly, the data also showed that those who were divorced or separated or had never been married were both more likely to complain of ill health and more likely to die in the following five years.
Other factors that the study found to be precursors to ill health included living in public housing, having no educational qualifications, being unemployed and not owning a car, the Daily Mail reported.
Residents of Scotland were found to be the least likely UK citizens to be accused of being hypochondriacs because their complaints about ill health were in fact backed up by the reality that they were statistically more likely to die within five years of reporting their illness.
In related news, last week scientists from University of Cambridge announced that “man flu” may be an actual condition caused by the differences between men and women’s immune systems.
Researchers claimed that men’s immune systems are generally weaker thanks to an evolutionary development which favoured women, giving them stronger immunity from illness because of their childbearing role.
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