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  • Dan: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English.

  • I'm Dan, and joining me today is Neil. Hi Neil.

  • Neil: Hi, everyone!

  • Dan: Bless you! Are you ok?

  • Neil: I think I'm coming down with something serious.

  • Dan: It's just a case of the sniffles.

  • Neil: The sniffles

  • is an informal way of saying a cold or flu.

  • It comes from the sniffing sound people make

  • when they have a runny nose.

  • Dan: And a runny nose is when liquid mucus keeps

  • leaking from our nose,

  • usually when we are sick.

  • I'm afraid you'll just have to soldier on Neil.

  • Neil: To soldier on means to continue despite difficulty.

  • I'm dying!

  • What's it about anyway?

  • Dan: It's about 'man flu',

  • and whether it's actually real, or

  • just something men like to complain about.

  • We'll give you 6 words and expressionsand, of course, our quiz question.

  • Neil: Alright, fire away.

  • Dan: In a survey conducted by Nuts magazine

  • that asked its readers

  • how long they took to recover from a cold or flu,

  • where women put an average of 1.5 days,

  • what did men put?

  • Was it a) 1 day

  • b) 2 days or c) 3 days?

  • Neil: I'm going to say 3 days.

  • The threat of 'man flu' is real.

  • Dan: Well, we'll find out later, but let's clarify.

  • 'Man flu' is the tendency that many people believe men

  • have to complain about a minor illness,

  • such as a cold or flu,

  • and act as if they were suffering from something

  • a lot more serious.

  • Neil: Yes. But science cannot say whether men

  • do actually suffer more than women,

  • or if men just tend to complain more.

  • Dan: Let's hear from this British couple

  • about whether they think 'man flu' is real or not.

  • Man: Men definitely do suffer a lot more, I think,

  • than women do when we get flu.

  • Woman: Yeah, I'm not so convinced.

  • I feel like they just complain more.

  • Woman: I was ill recently and I just carried on

  • and went to work and everything.

  • And when Chris had got sick recently

  • he was on the sofa and couldn't really do anything, so

  • Dan: And it seems that it's not just in the UK.

  • Listen to this BBC Journalist interviewing a woman

  • from Europe.

  • BBC Journalist: You're from the Netherlands.

  • Have you ever accused your

  • boyfriend of having man flu?

  • Dutch woman: Oh, absolutely yes. Yeah.

  • BBC Journalist: What have you accused him of doing?

  • Dutch woman: …whining?

  • Neil: Whining is when someone complains repeatedly

  • and often in an annoying way about something.

  • So, there certainly seems to be something there

  • but nothing has been proven, right?

  • Dan: Well, a recent scientific study

  • has indicated that there could be something

  • to 'man flu' after all.

  • Doctor Kyle Sue,

  • an assistant professor of

  • family medicine at Memorial University

  • of Newfoundland in Canada,

  • has suggested

  • that there could be a difference

  • between men and women

  • when it comes to respiratory diseases.

  • Neil: Respiratory meaning related to breathing.

  • He says that there was already a lot of evidence

  • from existing studies suggesting men experience

  • worse, longer-lasting symptoms.

  • Dan: Symptoms are the feelings of illness caused

  • by a disease.

  • Listen to him explain why this is.

  • Dr Sue: It seems that the higher the testosterone levels,

  • the lower the immune response to

  • these types of infections,

  • whereas the higher the oestrogen level,

  • the stronger the immune response.

  • Neil: Testosterone and oestrogen are hormones

  • that exist in both men and women.

  • Testosterone is higher in males

  • and oestrogen is higher in females.

  • Dr. Sue's research suggests that

  • the more oestrogen a person has,

  • the better able they are to fight off the infection.

  • That's it then! Man flu is real!

  • Dan: Hold your horses, Neil.

  • There are two problems.

  • First of all, the Royal college of GPs in the UK

  • says that there is no such thing as 'man flu'.

  • And secondly,

  • even Dr Sue admits that these results, including his own,

  • are only 'suggestive' and are not 'definitive'.

  • Neil: So, basically he's saying that

  • there is a suggestion that 'man flu' exists,

  • but the evidence so far cannot say for sure.

  • Dan: Exactly.

  • More studies need to be done.

  • But you know what we can be sure about?

  • The answer to this week's quiz question.

  • I asked you

  • in a survey conducted by Nuts magazine

  • that asked its readers

  • how long they took to recover from a cold or flu,

  • where women put an average of 1.5 days,

  • what did men put?

  • a) 1 day b) 2 days or c) 3 days

  • Neil: And I said 3 days.

  • Dan:And you were

  • right!

  • Neil :Good!

  • Dan: The men said they took twice as long to recover!

  • Neil: It must be all that manly testosterone.

  • Let's review our vocabulary, shall we?

  • Dan: Our first was the sniffles.

  • If you have the sniffles,

  • you have a cold, informally speaking.

  • What's the best cure for the sniffles Neil?

  • Neil: Stay in bed and sweat it out, my mum always said.

  • Just make sure you have lots of tissues

  • to deal with your runny nose.

  • That's when a person's nose leaks mucus,

  • usually because they are ill. Yuck!

  • Dan: Next we had soldier on.

  • This phrasal verb means to continue despite difficulty.

  • When was the last time you had to soldier on, Neil?

  • Neil: A few days ago when I went the whole day

  • without eating any lunch!

  • Then we had 'man flu'.

  • That's is the name given to the situation where a person,

  • often a man,

  • tends to complain and exaggerate a small illness

  • such as a cold.

  • Do you do that, Dan?

  • Dan: I'm sure my wife would say I do!

  • Next we had whining.

  • If you whine, you complain repeatedly

  • and often in an annoying way.

  • Neil: Like my children did

  • last time I didn't buy them ice-cream.

  • And finally we had symptoms.

  • These are the feelings of illness caused by a disease.

  • What are the symptoms of flu, Dan?

  • Dan: A headache, aching muscles, and a fever.

  • And that's the end of this 6 Minute English!

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  • There you made it. You can collapse now.

  • Neil: Bye.

  • Dan: Bye!

Dan: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English.

Subtitles and vocabulary

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