When it comes to fighting off infections from viruses and bacteria, women also seem to fare better. “If there’s a really bad infection, they survive better. If it’s about the duration of the infection, women will respond faster, and the infection will be over faster in women than in men,” says Sandberg. “If you look across all the different types of infections, women have a more robust immune response.” It isn’t that women don’t get sick. They do. They just don’t die from these sicknesses as easily or as quickly as men do.
