It is common to make fun of men for acting like “big babies” when they’re even mildly sick. According to Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, who heads the Shlomo and Pola Zabludowicz Center of Autoimmune Diseases (eng.sheba.co.il/567/329.htm) in the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, there is a physiological basis for this behavior.
Indeed, says the world-renowned Israeli autoimmunologist, prolific author and founder and editor of the Israel Medical Association Journal, Autoimmunity Reviews and J Autoimmunity: “Women are literally the stronger gender, with a better immune system. Not only do they outlive men, but when a woman has a cold, she goes about her business, and when a man has one, he takes to his bed and cries for a cup of tea.”
But this stronger immune system is also why, explains Shoenfeld, “with a few exceptions, autoimmune diseases attack women more than men, and usually at childbearing ages.”
As he gives ISRAEL21c a guided tour of the 3,000-meter (nearly 33,000-foot) center, decorated by Israeli artists and sculptors, Shoenfeld delivers a fluid summary of autoimmune diseases and the breakthroughs being made on the premises.
More...
