blog

We’re a smidgen the other side of the summer solstice; the days are long and bright and the air is thick with the scent of strawberries, chilled rose wine and barbeques… reason to be cheerful one would think?

Not for me, I’m unwell, most likely suffering from a life-threatening ‘man cold’ – the severest of all rhinovirus infections, the strain of which is an order of magnitude more virulent than that which causes the common cold… and that’s fact!

So I thought I’d dig around F1000 to find some reason why I, normally a poster boy for health and vitality, should suddenly be struck low with this lurgy. I think I have found my answer.

At the end of last year Faculty Member Nanna Eller, picked up on a fascinating paper in which the authors found that the incidence of the common cold in men was significantly associated with work stress. No such association was found in women. Now some may be tempted to infer from this that women are just more stable and less prone to psychosocial work stress than men. I think that would be quite a leap of logic for many of us.

I prefer to lay the blame squarely at the feet of Dr Grant for adding significantly to my already hectic existence by volunteering me to write his blog while he’s sunning himself in some foreign clime… I shall have my revenge.