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Post by silverdragon on Oct 6, 2014 9:02:13 GMT
There are various for and against arguments on this subject, can being cold cause you to catch a cold.
In the No corner, they say that if it were true, all people in cold climates would be permanently ill.
In the Yes corner, they say that lowering the body temperature is bad for you and can and will cause health problems....
Oh heck, I can see both sides of the argument, and I agree with both sides at the same time...........
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Post by OziRiS on Oct 6, 2014 17:54:42 GMT
Busted many times over.
The common cold is caused by germs, not weather.
Try Googling "does cold weather make you sick?"
That question has apparently been Googled so many times that they've decided to provide a small fact-box before all the links pop up to pages explaining the answer further.
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Post by mrfatso on Oct 6, 2014 21:24:47 GMT
There are some studies that claim a link between cold weather and sickness, though it does not directly cause a cold,,that is either by virus or bacteria. The suggested mechanism is that cold dry air causes construction in the blood vessels of mucus membranes in the nose and throat, which means that white blood cells do not travel,as easily to sights of infection which means that they have an increased chance of getting a foothold and Increasing.
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Post by GTCGreg on Oct 6, 2014 22:02:05 GMT
I think the reason this myth may seem true to a lot of people is because when they are first coming down with a cold, they actually feel chilled. The next day, they have a full blown cold going and they think that it must be because they got chilled the day before when the real reason they felt chilled the day before is because the cold was starting.
Hope that makes some sense.
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Post by OziRiS on Oct 6, 2014 22:54:07 GMT
There are some studies that claim a link between cold weather and sickness, though it does not directly cause a cold,,that is either by virus or bacteria. The suggested mechanism is that cold dry air causes construction in the blood vessels of mucus membranes in the nose and throat, which means that white blood cells do not travel,as easily to sights of infection which means that they have an increased chance of getting a foothold and Increasing. Wikipedia has this to say on the subject: "The traditional folk theory is that a cold can be "caught" by prolonged exposure to cold weather such as rain or winter conditions, which is how the disease got its name. Some of the viruses that cause the common colds are seasonal, occurring more frequently during cold or wet weather. The reason for the seasonality has not been conclusively determined. This may occur due to cold induced changes in the respiratory system, decreased immune response, and low humidity increasing viral transmission rates, perhaps due to dry air allowing small viral droplets to disperse farther and stay in the air longer. It may be due to social factors, such as people spending more time indoors, near an infected person, and specifically children at school. There is some controversy over the role of low body temperature as a risk factor for the common cold; the majority of the evidence suggests that it may result in greater susceptibility to infection." Notice that while "there's controversy over the role of low body temperature as a risk factor", that still doesn't change the fact that the cold is induced by a bacterial or viral infection, so the answer is still no. Cold weather alone won't make you sick. It might put you at increased risk of catching a cold, but it won't cause one in and of itself.
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Post by silverdragon on Oct 7, 2014 7:37:21 GMT
Just cold weather, busted, 'cos anyone can dress warm But. Continued exposure to cold can dampen your immune system. Go sit on a block of ice in a school playground and see how quick you get sick?....
Side myth, School playgrounds are commonly believed to be the breeding ground for anything that goes round....
Well, I suppose, grounds for this myth, Kids catch many things, get a load of kids from different places in the same place, they can share what they got....
So is it just school playgrounds?.. of can colds be caught in any communal meeting area?....
The spread of Ebola can be studied for the idea behind this...?...
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Post by mrfatso on Oct 7, 2014 12:58:42 GMT
A friends Daughter has just gone off to University, with a few days everyone in her halls has got various bugs, she is last I heard in bed and homesick, that could be an example of lots of young people mixing together for the first time from all over the country spreading new germs to each other. Also thinking back to my holiday this year, when we got back off the Cruise ship we all came down with coughs and chest infections, lots of mixIng with different people, in a confined space.
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Post by the light works on Oct 9, 2014 11:25:45 GMT
I recall seeing an anecdotal statement that nobody at polar research facilities has ever contracted a cold. - because the rhinovirus is inactive at those temperatures; and nobody has ever imported it.
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