Recent study revealed that boys have more danger of complications in the womb. Even when they grow up the higher risk of various diseases continues.

Professor Marek Glezerman, a gender-based medicine expert studied 66,000 births at Israel's Rabin Medical Centre between 1995 and 2006.

Data analysis revealed that pregnancies with a male foetus were more often complicated and carried greater risk of difficult or premature delivery.

Glezerman said: "Males are also associated with higher risk in the neonatal period after birth and are more likely to expose themselves to risky behaviour later in life."

"In short, men are the weaker sex."