Now this is a twist. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/tec ... le1303330/

An update from recent Canadian research. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/younger-women-hard-hit-by-h1n1-virus-study-suggests/article1321178/

demolay, I think it's interesting that "younger women" have been documented as being more susceptible to
severe illness from the H1N1 flu. I have a couple of thoughts about it but also a few questions, and I would
need to know the specifics about the women affected before I could try and see any pattern.

The average age of the women who died was 42, and the average age of the women who were admitted to ICU
was 32, according to the article. When I think about women in this age range, there are a few things that I think
may cause them to become more severely ill, depending on how the flu virus works. It could be that they are, on
average, more fitness conscious (eating well, exercising regularly) and that the severe illness is due to cytokine storm,
which causes healthier people to become sicker. Or, conversely, they may be working mothers, fatigued and not able
to fight illness as well. It would be really interesting to examine their cases and see if there are any common denominators.

A couple of other things occurred to me that might make young women more susceptible. The first is that a lot of
young women take contraceptives, and the second is that they may have an extreme diet, or be missing certain
things from their diets. I wonder if there's any research being done about this? I wonder also if the trend will continue.