Why does the flu affect me more than others?

Every year you have the same impression: your partner, your co-worker and even your mother catch a flu and in less than one week They are like new. On the other hand, you spend days and days suffering from various pains, fever, tiredness … Why so much injustice? Does everyone else pamper their defenses more than you? Now, scientists of the University of California, that of Los Angeles (UCLA) and of Arizona They have found part of the answer to your questions and the origin of why the flu beats you year after year is related to the first flu strain that made you sick when you were a little girl.

Apparently, exposure to flu virus during childhood it offers us partial protection for the rest of your life, or what is the same, the virus of the primitive constipate that infected you as a child will mark your evolution in subsequent flu.

To reach this conclusion, US scientists selected two subtypes of the influenza virus (H3N2 and H1N1) because they are to blame for most flu outbreaks Winter that we have suffered in recent decades. Analyzing the data provided by the Arizona health service, they were able to verify that people who were exposed as children to the H1N1 strain had a lower risk of end up in the hospital if they faced this adult strain again than those who debuted children with the H3N2 flu strain and found adults with H1N1.

And conversely, the same: those who suffered as children suffered at the hands of the H3N2 when they got older they got rid of the worst symptoms if they coincided with this virus again. However, those who debuted in childhood with the H1N1 and they ended up running into adults with the H3N2They had a terrible time.

That is why it is possible that the cold that your partner slips you leaves you for the drag and vice versa. But since you don't know which strain was the one that complicated your life in your early childhood, the best idea is to pour in prevention: Wash your hands often with soap and water, if you are in a risk group get vaccinated every fall and try to lead a lifestyle that is not an attack on your defenses.