Why is it that women are stronger than men?

Our white blood cells are super-powered

That was what Dr Ramona Scotland found when she examined exactly what happens in male mice versus female ones when exposed to live bacteria. “Despite the fact that we gave both groups the same bacteria at the same time, three hours later the amount of bacteria in the females’ blood was really low,” she says.

Looking closely at the white blood cells, she found that not only do females have about double the numbers of a type of cell called macrophages than men do, but “female macrophages have a greater number of danger-sensing proteins on their surface, which makes them more sensitive to invaders, and they were faster at engulfing those invaders when they spotted them”, Scotland reveals.