Flickr, lululemon athletica
We may not be as physically strong as men - well, not most of us anyway - but several studies suggest women may be more resilient where health is concerned. The latest, published in the Journal of Trauma, claims a woman is more likely to survive a serious injury than a man. The reason, they believe, may have something to do with the hormone oestrogen.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the US claim women may have a better ability to survive than men, perhaps because during our evolution it's generally been the woman's job to look after the children.
Having gathered information on more than 48,000 people who had suffered a severe injury, they discovered the rate of survival for women was 14% higher than for men.
And while they can't be certain about the exact reason why more women survive, they claim the presence of oestrogen could be the most significant factor - that's because the increased survival rate was only seen in women aged between 13 and 64.
After a serious injury, the researchers claim, hormones such as oestrogen seem to play specific roles in critical body functions, giving women better resilience to the trauma they have suffered. The findings could lead to new hormone-based drugs that could help men boost their survival chances too.
This study may suggest women are stronger in terms of recovering from a traumatic injury, but are they stronger than men in other ways too? Or not? What do you think?
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