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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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 Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 8:29 pm Post subject: Why in the cold are there more colds to be had? |
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I'm curious if anyone has theory as to why we catch colds during the cold. What is is about winter that causes us to get more often sick? Is it in part that our bodies are using much energy to keep warm?
Curious. |
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Jeff's Cigarettes
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 9:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Less sun in winter...vitamin D deficiency directly affects our immune system, leaving us susceptible to colds and other illnesses. |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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Sounds reasonable. I've read elsewhere that often people are significantly deficient of vitamin D by the typical winter's end.
I'm sure that is augmented here. I have to fight with my students to get them to open the curtains in the winter to let that mean ol' sun in.
I'm trying to understand the causes of the common cold better so that I can better prevent getting sick. I'm so sick of getting sick here! |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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Other factors I've found: In the cold, we are closer together with less air circulation; ultraviolet rays, which kill off many germs, are significantly reduced.
Haven't seen anything on the vitamin D hypothesis just yet. |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Did find some evidence that Vitamin D is an immune system regulator. . . so the lack of sunlight here is a part of the problem. |
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The evil penguin
Joined: 24 May 2003
Location: Doing something naughty near you.....
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Omkara wrote: |
| Did find some evidence that Vitamin D is an immune system regulator. . . so the lack of sunlight here is a part of the problem. |
Vitamin D might be a contributing factor in some cases but it doesn't explain why colds and flu's also hit hard in the mild (sunny) winters of subtropical areas. Although the reduced intensity of light waves might have something to do with it... |
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PeteJB
Joined: 06 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:32 am Post subject: |
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| I find a flaw in this logic. Korea gets more sunshine in Winter than summer, usually (due to various forms of cloud or smog). Does it have to do with the intensity of the rays, perhaps? |
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Ukon
Joined: 29 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:36 am Post subject: |
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| Because people spend more time indoors and thus are more likely to regularly encounter people who are sick in the same space and touch objects with their germs on it. |
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The evil penguin
Joined: 24 May 2003
Location: Doing something naughty near you.....
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:01 am Post subject: |
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| Ukon wrote: |
| Because people spend more time indoors and thus are more likely to regularly encounter people who are sick in the same space and touch objects with their germs on it. |
Again, doesn't fully explain the increase of colds and flu in subtropical regions.... during the day in some areas at least the temp is warm enough to still go swimming. If anything, people spend LESS (daytime) time indoors, as opposed to locking themselves inside with the aircon during summer.
I'm pushing the theory that it has to do with the immune system weakened by temperature changes.... hot to cold hot to cold. Hence the summer colds in tropical areas... going from air con inside to hot outside, the reverse of winter. Obviously the exposure to the cold/flu viruses is an essential part of the recipe. |
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SOOHWA101
Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Location: Makin moves...trying to find 24pyung
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 3:02 am Post subject: |
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Americans suffer an estimated one billion colds a year, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and because so many colds occur in the winter time, there has always been a sense that cold weather causes colds.
In fact, a recent, small study from the UK.'s Common Cold Centre in Wales found that when people were exposed to a chill they came down with cold symptoms at double the rate of those study participants who kept warm. But there was no difference in the severity of cold symptoms.
That's because people who are exposed to the cold experience a constriction of blood vessels in their noses, which shuts off warm blood from nourishing the white cells that fight infection, the study's authors said.
"The reduced defenses in the nose allow the virus to get stronger and common cold symptoms develop," study author Ron Eccles, of Cardiff University, said in a prepared statement.
But, he added, "although the chilled subject believes he has 'caught a cold,' what has in fact happened is that the dormant infection has taken hold."
"As body temperature drops, the body fights infection less well, so the two could be related," said Jordan Josephson, director of New York Nasal and Sinus Center in New York City |
http://health.excite.com/article/id/529268.html |
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KOREAN_MAN
Joined: 01 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 3:05 am Post subject: |
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| I guess the cold virus thrives at that temperature. (You never get to hear Eskimos getting a cold.) BTW, you can't "cure" a cold by taking some medicine or getting a shot. You just need to wait it out. All the drugs do is to reduce the symptoms of a cold. |
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Poemer
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Location: Mullae
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| Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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| It's purely psychological. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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That's a question that has never been answered. Medical research has been done exposing people to the cold virus in various ambiant temperatures and it doesn't make any difference.
The reasonable answer is simply people are in doors more in the winter. You get a cold by touching a surface someone has sneezed on and then you touch your eyes, which is a super highway for viruses. Your nose and throat have a line of defense: mucus etc. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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I live in a small Korean town and get colds every winter; I just got back from 10 days in a more crowded touristy Guam, surrounded by more people on buses and in busy restaurants and malls and NOT A SINGLE sniffle or sick person to be seen! Every day is 33-35 C there and overnight lows of 25-27 C. I had a cold before I went and am getting another now that I'm back but during my trip I was symptom free.
I totally am convinced by this and other similar experiences that it has nothing to do with crowds/proximity to others but everything to do with ambient temperature, whether it be its effect on one's immune system or on airborne viruses I dunno. |
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greedy_bones
Joined: 01 Jul 2007
Location: not quite sure anymore
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| Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Ukon wrote: |
| Because people spend more time indoors and thus are more likely to regularly encounter people who are sick in the same space and touch objects with their germs on it. |
I'd have to go with this hypothesis. Illnesses that are transmitted via food or parasites tend to be as active or more active in warm seasons when people aren't in such close proximity to eachother. The plague was pretty interesting in that the pneumonic form of the plague was spread mostly during the winter whereas the bubonic and septicemic forms were spread pretty evenly throughout the year.
It would make sense that a disease which is spread through the air would be more common during months when people are in closer proximity with less ventilation. |
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