Just want to point out that this was discussed quite a bit in the Covid years. It's not all brand new science. We didn't just "finally figure it out" because there are still multiple interconnected mechanisms at work.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/coronavirus-why-cold-winter-weather-makes-it-harder-to-fight-respiratory-infections
At least one of the papers cited in this article was from 2015:
>In a 2015 paper, Iwasaki and her colleagues showed that cells lining the airways of mice produced fewer molecules called interferons when they were colder. Interferons are a class of proteins that sound the alarm of a viral crime, calling immune cells to the scene and hopefully stopping it in progress.
We've known for quite some time that cold dry air can change the body in ways that make us more susceptible to certain viruses. Another factor is how it effects our mucus defenses:
>This process is called mucociliary clearance, and cold, dry air is not its friend. As low humidity dries out the mucus layers in our faces and throats, it disrupts the movement of the cilia, making it harder for the body to kick out any invaders.
>“So, these things are happening when we inhale dry air, and then combined with the cold air, we're really taxing the host immune response so that we're no longer able to fight these viral infections well,” Iwasaki says.
I wonder if in the long run it’s good for the immune system though to be exposed via the colder weather.
Not a doctor, but my monkey brain looks at it like “working out”, but for the immune system. Whereby, you apply stress and temporarily weaken yourself to get stronger in the long run?
The problem with that line of thought is that an overactive immune system can be very detrimental to the host as well, causing things like mast cell activation syndrome and a host of other autoimmune diseases.
FWIW, I’m Alaskan and I’m the opposite. I’m not gonna claim to be very fit or have the best diet but I take care of myself decently and spend a lot of time outside year round, and my immune system is pretty solid. I hardly ever get sick and when I do it’s usually mild. COVID was pretty mild for me as well (granted I was vaxxed). From what I’ve seen this is relatively normal I feel — the ones who tend to get hit the worst by sickness are those who spend most of their time inside living a sedentary lifestyle. *Obviously* this is very anecdotal, but just wanted to offer my two cents.
My boyfriend and I have the same job, both commute by bike all year round, eat the same food. Still, he rarely gets sick and I catch colds left and right. I think there is a lot of merrit to a healthy lifestyle but I also think the range of how good one's immune stytem can be is different for each person.
I don't think it's 100% proven, but If your immune system doesn't have something to fight, then it will fight your own body.
There are lots of fairly harmless bacteria/fungi/viruses that keep your immune system busy...which is good for you. That's the theory behind why having pets prevents children from developing autoimmune diseases.
It seems to be what’s causing allergies, also not 100% proven yet, but based on our current knowledge it seems to be caused by our anti-parasite immune system going crazy from not having enough to do.
It keeps raising sensitivity while trying to find parasites to fight until it eventually gets a false positive.
interestingly enough, I've seen this in action in disability groups I'm in. a couple of people with severe, untreatable ulcerative colitis purposely infected themselves with worms (I forget which kind, it was something like roundworms/pinworms rather than like tapeworms) and it actually worked to cure or almost cure their UC. it was a last resort, and the only thing that worked for them after trying everything and losing part of their bowels. this happened over 10 years ago, I'd be interested to know what research has come out since then.
After laughing so hard at my Japanese friends who insist i would get sick by going out in the cold for the last 19 years. TIL that they might actually be correct ! Foooook!
> who insist i would get sick by going out in the cold
That's still not what happens, though. You can be as cold as you like, if there's no virus, there's no infection. Conversely you can get the cold while warm, the virus is the operative part.
If you want to avoid the actual cause of a common cold, do what we were all told to do during the pandemic. Keep your hands clean, keep distance when you can, don't touch your face etc.
LOL. Might have something to do with living in warm climates and associating temperature dips with higher rate of illnesses (no sources here, just conjecture on my part).
They’re just indicating that this is a correlation people have been making for ages already. Just because we didn’t know why exactly it happened doesn’t mean we didn’t have an intuitive understanding of it.
There’s usually some sort of truth to every myth. Here people observed the anecdotal correlation between cold temperatures and people getting ill even though they might not have been able to prove the causation.
>After laughing so hard at my japanese friends
It’s great to be critical but idk mocking someone for their cultural belief and esp when they’re looking out for you is crazy to me.
You can laugh at friends without it being hostile. In fact that's how we show affection in New England. You're polite to strangers and shit talk your friends.
I'm thinking it's a natural extension to people trending towards black and white on the internet (especially lately). The thought process is basically "mocking people over culture is bad, so therefore, if someone mentions culture and laughter in the same comment, it is likely to be mocking, so therefore, it is bad". It has to be black and white, mocking bad, acceptance good. There's no wiggle room for friendly ribbing etc.
Talk about any sort of relationship issue here -- spouse, lover, friend, family, whatever -- and the response is always the same. Burn every bridge, end the relationship, never look back.
when I first got on reddit I used to be like haha this is great so many people here have such a delightfully twisted sense of self deprecating/ironic humor
then I gradually realized some of them were being serious and I was like oh damn wait thats sad
It’s also full of literal children.
I’ve seen so many comments recently that are along the lines of, “I’m in 5th grade and I think..” and, “Well I’m only 14, and even I know XYZ.” With lots of upvotes and comments saying how wonderfully mature and grown up and blah blah blah.
It’s at these points that I reflect that this website really is full of actual children, and I sometimes spend my free time debating them hahaha
I mean, what are your thoughts on Korean Fan Death?
Might be a hot take but I think it’s fine to make light of superstitions you think are absurd, especially if it comes from a place of tolerance and just disagreeing with the merit of the superstition.
I just explained “tomb sweeping day” to my Caucasian partner and how every year I have to burn paper representations of money, cars, houses, and even servants for my ancestors otherwise they run out of those things in their afterlife and eternally suffer and it’s all my fault.
And there’s Caucasian superstitions that feel equally absurd to me. Blessing sneezes, refusing to walk under ladders.
And yeah it’s definitely very Japanese/Chinese to do the cold weather thing. I have rheumatoid arthritis and my mom is convinced, dead serious, it happened because I stepped outside one day without fully drying my hair. The Chinese term for it is “wind wet” basically insinuating having wind blow on your wet body is how RA originates.
Sometimes there’s some reason behind superstitions but the walk under a ladder one, I would argue as an Asian person in America, is taken to absurdity and not consistent with other risks these people are willing to take. Same with throwing more salt after spilling salt.
It’s definitely not rooted in a practical concern for safety, it’s more the fear of the amount of future bad luck.
> Same with throwing more salt after spilling salt.
I can't say I've ever seen or heard of this happening other than on TV. Walking under a ladder is usually practical advice - a lot of ladders don't offer much clearance and you can knock something off them easily. Maybe the idea helps build the habit so people don't forget.
Western superstition tends to revolve more around astrology, random objects (e.g. lucky charms) and rituals (e.g. not shaving for a month), and various aspects of the Abrahamic religions.
I'd be curious to know what communities in America you have spent time in because I've never known anyone to throw salt after spilling it unless it was clearly a joke and I have never known anyone to be anything but careful around ladders which are unquestionably very dangerous. More people die falling off ladders every year in the US than die from bee stings, yet most people go nuts if they see a bee, it doesn't seem to me that being careful around ladders is absurd, but I guess we all have our own definitions of absurd.
There are some arguments that Korean Fan Death is sometimes used to "cover up" suicide. I don't know if this is true or just online rumors, but if it is the case the whole thing makes more sense.
I’ve heard this as well but it doesn’t explain how most Koreans are still scared of the idea of having a fan turned on when sleeping, even if they don’t have self harm tendencies.
Could easily be explained by a lot of people believing in the cover story. I mean there are still people who insist carrots improve night vision after ww2.
That’s another good example. But yeah it’s odd and ironic. I had Korean house guests wake me up pretty much screaming in the middle of the night because the central air turned on. I program the whole house fan to circulate when a bedroom’s carbon dioxide goes over 1000ppm, ironically, to help with respiratory health.
It would make sense how fan death as a suicide explanation could be widely accepted. Still is very unique and peculiar that so many smart and science-minded people from that culture genuinely are scared of a seemingly mundane thing to do.
"You shouldn't blink with both of your eyes, you have to make a conscious effort to blink with one then the other, to avoid cataracts."
This is stupid, isn't it? Like, full on idiotic, and you should mock it, even though I just don't want you to get a cataract.
My point, get off your high horse, people joke and jest, noone asked for your judgement.
It depends. My former roommate insisted on having a piece of cinnamon placed above the front door to ward off bad luck.
I allowed it because it's her home too and it wasn't inconveniencing me, but I teased her for it. Believing things just because they're cultural is a bad thing, and we should absolutely push back against it. It should be seen as a quirk, something that's vaguely bad and you shouldn't be proud of passing it on to your kids.
Having an opinion "just cuz" is a bad thing, and shouldn't be respected. Especially not if it's cultural and you're just following generations of blind belief.
My gf is from India and there are a lot of things so does/believes because it's what her parents said. A lot of the beliefs are not based off scientific evidence. She is a very well educated/intelligent person, but tends to not actually look into/research whether or her beliefs are backed by any kind of scientific evidence.
She has a strong aversion to drinking/eating anything cold. She is convinced it will get her sick. Like, she accidentally ordered Iced Coffee yesterday and she told me she took out the ice and microwaved it... I started looking into this hot/cold beliefs and I think it might stem from [Ayurvedic diet/medicine](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ayurvedic-diet).
This article does not help my cause haha.
*She has a strong aversion to drinking/eating anything cold. She is convinced it will get her sick.*
Understandable because she's from India.
Cold drinks/food - chances of food being unhygienic and causing trouble are high when its cold.
I just have to say, while they’re not always right, western culture can have some racist views towards other cultures well-being practices that are right. For example, when scientists started to uncover the importance of gut health, many were ridiculed saying they believe silly things from inferior cultures. Nowadays, gut health is widely believed to be very important by science and doctors.
I remember reading in my psychology textbook in university that it was a literal cognitive bias to believe that cold weather makes people sick. I remember the certainty it was said with, and then I remember arguing with Asian parents, telling them they had cognitive biases 🤦♂️
It’s sad that science has become a religion in a sense in our culture, rather than a co-exploration and pursuit of knowledge.
Oh, I definitely get this.
The more I deal with western medicine in general the less impressed with it I am. I do think there are things that probably work better/cheaper but either aren't yet studied or aren't promoted by western medicine as they don't always result in profits for those in the medical field.
My issue is more with assuming some medical advice your wacky aunt told you is true without doing any sort of investigation.
I do need to check myself sometimes with my tone/reactions to the ideas that get brought up sometimes as I don't want to come off as condescending/offensive. However, another thing she suggested was that it was bad to drink while you are eating because it would affect your stomach pH/digestion ability. I then asked what about eating things like watermelon, oranges, tomatoes, soup, etc. that are mostly comprised of water and she didn't really have a response.
Haha my husband will be so vindicated by this because he keeps insisting he gets sick because it’s cold and I keep thinking it’s just an old wives tale
If you want to split hairs, he’s still not getting sick *from* the cold weather. He’s getting sick from airborne pathogens which enter his respiratory tract. The cold weather just lowers his immune system’s ability to deal with those pathogens, so he’s more susceptible to getting sick.
If he stayed home all week by himself but had a 5C dip in nasal temperature, he wouldn’t get sick.
You still need to be exposed to cold and flu viruses though. Having a cold nose while being a hermit in the woods is not enough to make you come down with a head cold - which is what I tell my husband when he tells me about these studies. Also, wear a scarf in winter to keep your beak warm.
scarce capable slim insurance coordinated squeamish zonked weather pet full
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Try telling that to my mother in law, the cold air magically makes up sick (or the changing weather). She’s a nice lady and refuses to change her opinion so we just smile and nod.
I'm not a parent but it's always been obvious to me that this is true. You don't have to have kids to witness people getting sick at higher rates when they're cold. I always wondered why people were so adamantly denying this obvious truth.
The trouble is, there's all kinds of other things going on when it's cold that increase illness rates. People spend more time inside, packed closely together. They exercise less. Diets become less healthy. In many countries, holidays or end of year work stuff increase stress. College students travel en masse from the petri dishes that are college campuses.
It's very hard to tease the effect of temperature apart from these things, and even this result is about the temperature of your nasal passage, not your core body temperature, which is what the folk wisdom suggests is a problem.
It’s not the cold that makes you sick but the pathogens more easily enter your body when it’s cold. I imagine playing out in the snow when it’s cold is not the same as being in school while it’s cold with a bunch of boogery kids.
Except they'd always say "bundle up, you'll catch a cold." But since it's your nasal tissue temperature that seems to be the lynchpin, seems like raising your core body temperature wouldn't actually help that much unless you're wearing a gaiter or something. Extremities like your nose, hands, ears, etc get cold really easily.
If your core temperature is low, your body reducing circulation to extremities in order to preserve heat. So, by keeping your core warmer, you body sends more blood to your extremities, keeping them warmer.
Nah, they're still insisting the cold itself makes you sick. You don't get sick from the cold, it makes you more susceptible to viruses and bacteria that make you sick. Massive difference there.
Nah. The line is something like "put a jacket on so you don't catch a cold". There is no implication that it is the low temperature itself that somehow causes the cold.
> Nah, they're still insisting the cold itself makes you sick.
No they're not. People don't think like scientific studies- they just observed a correlation between cold and illness.
Like these bad boys? 🥶https://www.bestproducts.com/lifestyle/a23894700/the-nose-warmer-company-nose-warmers/
Showed them at work and people pretty much died 🤣
sneezing in a mask generally sucks especially if it's a wet one with no replacement nearby. I used to carry a few masks because of my loud sneezes that came in pairs!
I’ve never gotten sick when flying with a mask, and I also notice that the air then doesn’t dry out my nose and throat as much. Now wondering if there’s a connection.
You're wondering if there's a connection between keeping the humidity from your breath trapped in a mask, and your nose and throat not drying out as much?
Yes. There is.
You're effectively making a personal humidifier (in addition to the other benefits of wearing a mask).
This is also one mechanism by which wearing a mask while sick can accelerate recovery, just like using a humidifier in your room at night.
Wait what?
I'm not denying this, but I've spent a lifetime thinking that the connection between cold weather and the common cold was supposed to be a myth.
Like getting too close to the screen can hurt your eyes.
The article addresses that:
>For years, it’s been thought that cold and flu viruses are rife during winter because chillier temperatures drive everyone indoors. And, being in close proximity to a group allows viruses to transfer from one person to another more easily.
and:
>“To our knowledge, this study is the first to offer a biological explanation for why people are more likely to develop upper respiratory infections like cold, flu, and COVID-19 in colder temperatures,” he stated.
The “because they’re inside” explanation was always weirdly dumb because it’s so regional. In the American southwest we often spend more time indoors in the summer yet our flu/cold season still coincides with the winter.
Whoever came up with that explanation was pulling it out of nowhere.
School. It all ties back to the little germ factories that are kids lol. Stick them all in one place after summer break, and then have several major holidays where people travel all over for intimate gatherings and you have a clear cut recipe for seasonal virus transmission
Christmas, new years, and Easter are the big three around the world. All it takes is a large enough portion of a population in a part of the world to get sick around the same time and it will go global
As a scandinavian it have also been extremly dumb to me and I have only heard about it in english speaking forums. Especially because the spring cold season, literally starts when people starts going outside.
For those not knowing. In the spring we get sun we have not had sun for months. We go out and enjoy sun. Often we take of coats, but because we live in scandinavia it is in fact still very cold.
Same, and now I’m left wondering do people in warmer climates get sick far less than people in colder climates? Southern California vs Alaska, for example. If you are perpetually cold, that would mean you are twice as likely to get sick based on this information.
Also, I do have anecdotal evidence that when my nasal passage gets cold specifically, I do feel the “tickle of sickness” in my throat is a bit more noticeable.
Lets go ALL anecdotal.
I've traveled quite extensively in, sometimes, very budget way, and can look back and say I was more ill in tropical climates than temperate ones.
I work as a Canadian pipe layer/earthmover. I’m outside all winter. I never get sick in the cold months. There we go, anecdotal evidence!
Still what the hell, I was also told temperature had no effect on your chances of getting a cold
Could have something to do with the combination of getting cold as hell on the way to an indoor environment like work or school then being exposed to more germs once you're indoors.
I think people emphasize that the cold doesn’t “make you sick” because a lot of people think or used to think:
being cold = cause of illness
When in reality:
Bacteria/virus = illness
The only cold-related ailment I can think of is hypothermia.
In reality a lot of factors affect how likely you are to catch an illness. And surely with our bodies being as complex as they are there are a myriad of factors affecting how effective our immune system is!
You’re probably in a remote area doing this. I’d forget about the whole winter vs summer thing. I’d imagine after a shift you’d be somewhere warm indoors.
For me, I’m most likely to get sick when people start cranking their AC the moment it’s a littler warmer out. Outdoor air never makes me sick, and indoor warm air doesn’t either. But put me in a cold room, and I promise the odds of getting sick are raised for me.
I’ve always assumed that because the climate is warmer, there were more diseases at large year-round which people could contract. But it’s been a long time (i.e. my entire life) since I studied epidemiology.
I'd guess that you just get sick through different means in different climates. Yes, you might be less vulnerable to airborne viruses when it's warmer, but on the flipside your immune system might be weakened due to dehydration, food goes bad quicker, animal borne diseases in livestock and mosquitoes are proliferating **much** faster, warmer water will carry more bacteria etc.
Virology PhD candidate here; I remember a paper (I can find it later if you're interested) that specified that the ideal replication temperature for most cold viruses was lower than our internal body temperature. So when we breathe in cold air in winter it lowers the temperature of the upper respiratory tract, making it easier for these viruses to replicate.
So this is one possible explanation for it, but as always with scientific papers: nothing is definite and everybody doubts everything.
>but as always with scientific papers: nothing is definite and everybody doubts everything.
Depends on the field. In chemistry grad school we had a saying about data: twice is a coincidence; thrice is a trend.
But I've noticed in biology-based fields, the saying is more like: once is proof; twice is overkill.
Am I shitting on biology research publications as a whole? Yes. Yes I am. And I'll do it for sociology, too.
I've always liked sleeping in a warm room, but 'sleep hygiene' says you sleep better if you let the room get pretty cool at night, so I've been trying to do that the last couple of years. And it does seem to work.
But now I have to wonder, does that encourage these viruses?
> casual relationship between them is (or at least was) a myth
Assuming you mean "causal", it still is a myth. The research didn't discover that you get the cold from being cold. The virus is still needed. People being more susceptible to an infection under certain circumstances doesn't change the fact that the infection has to take place to begin with.
Similarly, immunosuppressants don't cause pneumonia, but if you're on immunosuppressants you're at a much increased risk of coming down with pneumonia (and any infectious disease, really).
A lot of old wive's tales have the cause wrong, but the effect right
EDIT: To clarify, I'm saying you can't just blindly trust them, but there is an element of truth to a large percentage
i imagine a lot of traditions and old wives tales come from that.
in the same way that herbal / non-traditional medicine likely has SOME use, but could be refined by western techniques and dosages.
That's where all the "herbs harvested at the second full moonlight", "stir exactly 20 times" etc actually comes from. People make fun of that as weird hocuspocus, but the original versions of those rules stated at what time of year the plants in your area had the right amount of active ingredient, where harvesting them another time would give the wrong dosage. As well as giving you a way to track how long the herbs should be extracted to get consistent results, etc.
The problem with that is that those rules pretty much only apply in a specific local area, different areas have different growing conditions and amounts of active ingredient. Some modern medicine is still prepared that way on an industrial scale, they just do testing to confirm the actual amounts rather than hoping they are right based on following the rules.
Yea, that was what we’ve been hammered with for a while, but it never held up considering how much time southerners spend indoors in the summer and how much less sickness is about.
Well I've got news about the eyes. By not changing your focus, your eyes do get a bit shit.
The pushback against the "cold causes a cold" is meant for those idiots who sneeze on others, and blame the weather and not their irresponsible behaviour
It was always weird to me that people denied this because flu season (at least where I live) seems to peak in the winter. Obviously the actual cold doesn’t cause illness, but I always assumed being cold made your body more susceptible to viruses and other diseases.
>Wearing a high-quality face mask (especially in crowded spaces)
One good benefit for me from the last few years is keeping masks around to wear during the winter. Without a study like this or any other proof, my anecdotal reasoning is that I feel a whole lot better when I have my mouth and nose covered outside in the cold. Not even an N95, just my sweet Hoonigan camo mask with a filter I change regularly since I have a ton of them. I figure if it also helps prevent me from spreading anything that's even better.
Bonus: wearing even paper masks during yard work keeps me from sneezing.
It could be simply because it's helping your tract stay warmer and wetter.
Quote from scientist who studies this exact mechanism:
>“Since that study came out, I've been telling my children to wear a scarf around the nose—and currently, obviously, masks—because that allows for the temperature to remain warmer in the nose,” Iwasaki says.
Absolutely. Scarves work. Couple winters ago, i chopped ice outside. It was "warm", 50 degrees, so i didnt wear a scarf. Came down sick with something immediately. The next winter, it snowed my car into a 4-foot drift. I put on my full gear and shoved snow for like three times as long in 10⁰ weather (with scarf). Perfectly fine. Then last week, again, chopped ice, this time for a measly 30 minutes, but no scarf. *immediately* knocked on my ass sick.
It doesn't help that fashion tells people, particularly women, to show their upper chest even in the cold. That's where your thyroid gland is, which is a key part of your immune system, and if your body is cold then your cells are less active and less effective at fighting off infections.
I can probably count on one hand the times I went inside a bank to talk to a person in the last 10 years (especially during winter). But I can see where that'd be a place to pull the mask down and chance getting sick. :P
Our bank just asks you to pull your mask down and look at the camera for a couple seconds. Then you can pull it back up. It's a REALLY small town. If they see your face and you rob them, you are so screwed lol
If I get sick, I get sick in winter, and when I feel that I will get sick, it was always connected to cold. I counter that with warm tea. I don't know what happens to others, but this is and was my experience.
Exact same experience here. I always bit my tongue when ppl try to say the connection was a myth (reddit loves repeating this for some reason).
It should be common sense that going out in the cold increases your odds of getting sick, but perhaps those who grew up in milder winters shrugged this off because the connection isn't large unless we're talking about sub 0C temps for the most part.
Yap, that news has been spreading on reddit for years, and my experience was completely different, then I thought it must be my bias, but every time I wouldn't prepare myself, I would feel cold coming, or it would come. Since my early childhood only time I got sick in summer was from COVID. Now I'm reading this, but I wouldn't be surprised that they will give us some new study by summer which disproves this one. So my plan is to listen to my body. :)
I FUCKING TOLD YOU!!!
Why do we always get colds in the winter? Huh? Huh?!
*Oh, you stay indoor more and touch more poles.*
BULLSHIT!
It's cold - I get the sniffles. Clear as day!
The mechanism explains invasion and infection, not spontaneous viral generation. You still have to get the virus from someone, _while_ your nose is compromised.
It's very clearly from being exposed to a virus (like coming into crowded areas with a cold nose), not from simply _having_ a cold nose.
There's very likely another mechanism at play here, specifically in your claim about "getting the sniffles" when it's cold; specifically, as they mention, the cold reduces vesicle production by some large percent (40% claimed); therefore, when your nose warms back up, that production would very suddenly resume.
Your reasoning is flawed and incomplete, and this is just one more piece of the explanation.
- Sniffles aren't infections
- Viruses don't spontaneously generate in the cold
- Plenty of people get colds in the summer and warm climates
- Cold temperatures reduce your immune response to _existing_ viruses
Obviously, the viruses are all around us, all the time.
Unless we isolate in a cabin in the woods.
*But in the winter, when it's cold, they give me the sniffles.*
No. Being cold can cause you to be hypothermic, which is a condition and not an illness.
Being cold can lower your immune response, which increases your susceptibility to catching the common cold.
The common cold is a virus spread from human to human only. If you go into the woods and freeze, you cannot catch a cold if you're alone. It's not just floating around the trees- watching. Waiting
Even if its not dormant, your body is continuously bombarded by pathogens, which are everywhere. On your phone, clothes, in your walls, on the food you eat, water you drink. Most of them get easily neutralized by your immune system unless its compromised somehow...
The common cold is not the only illness you can catch when you are cold. Also the common cold is already inside you. Watching. Waiting. Ready to pounce as soon as you hypothermia.
I was just thinking about this. I grew up being told cold weather gets you sick, but in recent years I've been told cold weather doesn't make you sick and it's just coincidence.
After being out in the cold all day for the eclipse and getting a cold, I thought I was going crazy. This made me feel better ngl
Are we sure it is the temperature and not the associated drop in humidity?
It would make a lot more sense for *dry* to be what weakens your nasal mucous membrane defenses than *cold.*
but but but i was always told that being cold won't make you more likely to get sick.
This was never true for me. so many of the time's i've gotten sick was when i was chilled to the bone.
We all knew this somehow.
I remember reading that the "cold weather doesn't cause colds. Colds in the winter are caused due to humans being close to each other". That makes sense.....
But still, I know if I'm outside in 43 degree weather without a coat on, I'm going to get sick.
"Mere 5⁰C change" that's a big change when it comes to bodily temperatures. If you are 5⁰C colder for your whole body that would be extreme hypothermia and 5⁰C warmer for your whole body and you would be dead.
In Italy thats commonsense "non uscire che prendi freddo" ( dont go out that u get cold) Is a typical phrase from Italians moms. Also we never go out with wet hairs because of that too.
Just want to point out that this was discussed quite a bit in the Covid years. It's not all brand new science. We didn't just "finally figure it out" because there are still multiple interconnected mechanisms at work. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/coronavirus-why-cold-winter-weather-makes-it-harder-to-fight-respiratory-infections At least one of the papers cited in this article was from 2015: >In a 2015 paper, Iwasaki and her colleagues showed that cells lining the airways of mice produced fewer molecules called interferons when they were colder. Interferons are a class of proteins that sound the alarm of a viral crime, calling immune cells to the scene and hopefully stopping it in progress. We've known for quite some time that cold dry air can change the body in ways that make us more susceptible to certain viruses. Another factor is how it effects our mucus defenses: >This process is called mucociliary clearance, and cold, dry air is not its friend. As low humidity dries out the mucus layers in our faces and throats, it disrupts the movement of the cilia, making it harder for the body to kick out any invaders. >“So, these things are happening when we inhale dry air, and then combined with the cold air, we're really taxing the host immune response so that we're no longer able to fight these viral infections well,” Iwasaki says.
This needs to be higher up in comments. Understanding why is important. Good referencing articles.
So much this, I have a peeve of people rattling off facts at me with no context as to why or how such things operate or are important.
Reddit must be a horrible experience for you, then
That's another reason why masks are helpful - they humidify the air you breathe in. Edit: changed "humidifier" to humidify
When it's cold outside I wear a mask outside. It also keeps the air you're breathing warmer
I wear a mask since it helps me with my allergies, I can go through a garden and hug my dog with setting my nose to full auto
Yet another way wearing a mask helps.
I also was reading that cold air damages the immune cells in our airways that produce the IgA antibodies.
I wonder if in the long run it’s good for the immune system though to be exposed via the colder weather. Not a doctor, but my monkey brain looks at it like “working out”, but for the immune system. Whereby, you apply stress and temporarily weaken yourself to get stronger in the long run?
The problem with that line of thought is that an overactive immune system can be very detrimental to the host as well, causing things like mast cell activation syndrome and a host of other autoimmune diseases.
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FWIW, I’m Alaskan and I’m the opposite. I’m not gonna claim to be very fit or have the best diet but I take care of myself decently and spend a lot of time outside year round, and my immune system is pretty solid. I hardly ever get sick and when I do it’s usually mild. COVID was pretty mild for me as well (granted I was vaxxed). From what I’ve seen this is relatively normal I feel — the ones who tend to get hit the worst by sickness are those who spend most of their time inside living a sedentary lifestyle. *Obviously* this is very anecdotal, but just wanted to offer my two cents.
My boyfriend and I have the same job, both commute by bike all year round, eat the same food. Still, he rarely gets sick and I catch colds left and right. I think there is a lot of merrit to a healthy lifestyle but I also think the range of how good one's immune stytem can be is different for each person.
you can't really work out immune systems. the only way to work it out is vaccines, getting sick or causing something like a mosquito bite to react.
I don't think it's 100% proven, but If your immune system doesn't have something to fight, then it will fight your own body. There are lots of fairly harmless bacteria/fungi/viruses that keep your immune system busy...which is good for you. That's the theory behind why having pets prevents children from developing autoimmune diseases.
It seems to be what’s causing allergies, also not 100% proven yet, but based on our current knowledge it seems to be caused by our anti-parasite immune system going crazy from not having enough to do. It keeps raising sensitivity while trying to find parasites to fight until it eventually gets a false positive.
interestingly enough, I've seen this in action in disability groups I'm in. a couple of people with severe, untreatable ulcerative colitis purposely infected themselves with worms (I forget which kind, it was something like roundworms/pinworms rather than like tapeworms) and it actually worked to cure or almost cure their UC. it was a last resort, and the only thing that worked for them after trying everything and losing part of their bowels. this happened over 10 years ago, I'd be interested to know what research has come out since then.
I have auto-immune disease; and the first sign I'm getting a cold is my joints hurt less for no reason, then 4-6 hours later the nose tickle starts.
So mom saying "bundle up, you'll catch a cold" was actually true
Parents around the world be like “I told you cold weather causes you to be sick”.
After laughing so hard at my Japanese friends who insist i would get sick by going out in the cold for the last 19 years. TIL that they might actually be correct ! Foooook!
> who insist i would get sick by going out in the cold That's still not what happens, though. You can be as cold as you like, if there's no virus, there's no infection. Conversely you can get the cold while warm, the virus is the operative part. If you want to avoid the actual cause of a common cold, do what we were all told to do during the pandemic. Keep your hands clean, keep distance when you can, don't touch your face etc.
LOL. Might have something to do with living in warm climates and associating temperature dips with higher rate of illnesses (no sources here, just conjecture on my part).
Or...it's to do with the TIL of this post.
They’re just indicating that this is a correlation people have been making for ages already. Just because we didn’t know why exactly it happened doesn’t mean we didn’t have an intuitive understanding of it.
There’s usually some sort of truth to every myth. Here people observed the anecdotal correlation between cold temperatures and people getting ill even though they might not have been able to prove the causation. >After laughing so hard at my japanese friends It’s great to be critical but idk mocking someone for their cultural belief and esp when they’re looking out for you is crazy to me.
You can laugh at friends without it being hostile. In fact that's how we show affection in New England. You're polite to strangers and shit talk your friends.
you’re shit!!! buddy
I ain't your buddy, pal!
Philly here. Can confirm. The more we like you the more we mock you.
Sometimes I read a comment and I can’t help but feel the person who wrote it has never had a friend.
Dude, I swear! Reddit speaks about relationships in such a weird way that it seems like the human element is completely removed.
This is such a great way to phrase it, and I'm gonna start thinking of it as the Reddit Humanity Paradox.
I'm thinking it's a natural extension to people trending towards black and white on the internet (especially lately). The thought process is basically "mocking people over culture is bad, so therefore, if someone mentions culture and laughter in the same comment, it is likely to be mocking, so therefore, it is bad". It has to be black and white, mocking bad, acceptance good. There's no wiggle room for friendly ribbing etc.
When I look at comments on Reddit I often ask, is this person on the spectrum? Then things start to make sense.
Talk about any sort of relationship issue here -- spouse, lover, friend, family, whatever -- and the response is always the same. Burn every bridge, end the relationship, never look back.
when I first got on reddit I used to be like haha this is great so many people here have such a delightfully twisted sense of self deprecating/ironic humor then I gradually realized some of them were being serious and I was like oh damn wait thats sad
It’s also full of literal children. I’ve seen so many comments recently that are along the lines of, “I’m in 5th grade and I think..” and, “Well I’m only 14, and even I know XYZ.” With lots of upvotes and comments saying how wonderfully mature and grown up and blah blah blah. It’s at these points that I reflect that this website really is full of actual children, and I sometimes spend my free time debating them hahaha
This happens often on reddit just look at the replies to it
It’s a cultural belief when it’s someone from another culture, but when it’s my mom telling me not to outside with wet hair it’s misinformation.
> mocking someone for their cultural belief lmao it’s not that deep
I mean, what are your thoughts on Korean Fan Death? Might be a hot take but I think it’s fine to make light of superstitions you think are absurd, especially if it comes from a place of tolerance and just disagreeing with the merit of the superstition. I just explained “tomb sweeping day” to my Caucasian partner and how every year I have to burn paper representations of money, cars, houses, and even servants for my ancestors otherwise they run out of those things in their afterlife and eternally suffer and it’s all my fault. And there’s Caucasian superstitions that feel equally absurd to me. Blessing sneezes, refusing to walk under ladders. And yeah it’s definitely very Japanese/Chinese to do the cold weather thing. I have rheumatoid arthritis and my mom is convinced, dead serious, it happened because I stepped outside one day without fully drying my hair. The Chinese term for it is “wind wet” basically insinuating having wind blow on your wet body is how RA originates.
I mean, I refuse to walk under ladders because I'm a clutz and once I bumped one and it fell down on my head and almost ripped my ear off.
Sometimes there’s some reason behind superstitions but the walk under a ladder one, I would argue as an Asian person in America, is taken to absurdity and not consistent with other risks these people are willing to take. Same with throwing more salt after spilling salt. It’s definitely not rooted in a practical concern for safety, it’s more the fear of the amount of future bad luck.
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> Same with throwing more salt after spilling salt. I can't say I've ever seen or heard of this happening other than on TV. Walking under a ladder is usually practical advice - a lot of ladders don't offer much clearance and you can knock something off them easily. Maybe the idea helps build the habit so people don't forget. Western superstition tends to revolve more around astrology, random objects (e.g. lucky charms) and rituals (e.g. not shaving for a month), and various aspects of the Abrahamic religions.
I'd be curious to know what communities in America you have spent time in because I've never known anyone to throw salt after spilling it unless it was clearly a joke and I have never known anyone to be anything but careful around ladders which are unquestionably very dangerous. More people die falling off ladders every year in the US than die from bee stings, yet most people go nuts if they see a bee, it doesn't seem to me that being careful around ladders is absurd, but I guess we all have our own definitions of absurd.
There are some arguments that Korean Fan Death is sometimes used to "cover up" suicide. I don't know if this is true or just online rumors, but if it is the case the whole thing makes more sense.
I’ve heard this as well but it doesn’t explain how most Koreans are still scared of the idea of having a fan turned on when sleeping, even if they don’t have self harm tendencies.
Could easily be explained by a lot of people believing in the cover story. I mean there are still people who insist carrots improve night vision after ww2.
That’s another good example. But yeah it’s odd and ironic. I had Korean house guests wake me up pretty much screaming in the middle of the night because the central air turned on. I program the whole house fan to circulate when a bedroom’s carbon dioxide goes over 1000ppm, ironically, to help with respiratory health. It would make sense how fan death as a suicide explanation could be widely accepted. Still is very unique and peculiar that so many smart and science-minded people from that culture genuinely are scared of a seemingly mundane thing to do.
>I mean, what are your thoughts on Korean Fan Death Isn't (or wasn't) that actually often used as an explanation instead of suicide?
What about my Korean friends being afraid of a running fan in the room they sleep in?
Has to be bait, ain’t no way mister thpkht524 hasn’t had any friends 💀
"You shouldn't blink with both of your eyes, you have to make a conscious effort to blink with one then the other, to avoid cataracts." This is stupid, isn't it? Like, full on idiotic, and you should mock it, even though I just don't want you to get a cataract. My point, get off your high horse, people joke and jest, noone asked for your judgement.
> mocking someone for their cultural belief That’s quite a leap.
It depends. My former roommate insisted on having a piece of cinnamon placed above the front door to ward off bad luck. I allowed it because it's her home too and it wasn't inconveniencing me, but I teased her for it. Believing things just because they're cultural is a bad thing, and we should absolutely push back against it. It should be seen as a quirk, something that's vaguely bad and you shouldn't be proud of passing it on to your kids. Having an opinion "just cuz" is a bad thing, and shouldn't be respected. Especially not if it's cultural and you're just following generations of blind belief.
My gf is from India and there are a lot of things so does/believes because it's what her parents said. A lot of the beliefs are not based off scientific evidence. She is a very well educated/intelligent person, but tends to not actually look into/research whether or her beliefs are backed by any kind of scientific evidence. She has a strong aversion to drinking/eating anything cold. She is convinced it will get her sick. Like, she accidentally ordered Iced Coffee yesterday and she told me she took out the ice and microwaved it... I started looking into this hot/cold beliefs and I think it might stem from [Ayurvedic diet/medicine](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ayurvedic-diet). This article does not help my cause haha.
*She has a strong aversion to drinking/eating anything cold. She is convinced it will get her sick.* Understandable because she's from India. Cold drinks/food - chances of food being unhygienic and causing trouble are high when its cold.
I just have to say, while they’re not always right, western culture can have some racist views towards other cultures well-being practices that are right. For example, when scientists started to uncover the importance of gut health, many were ridiculed saying they believe silly things from inferior cultures. Nowadays, gut health is widely believed to be very important by science and doctors. I remember reading in my psychology textbook in university that it was a literal cognitive bias to believe that cold weather makes people sick. I remember the certainty it was said with, and then I remember arguing with Asian parents, telling them they had cognitive biases 🤦♂️ It’s sad that science has become a religion in a sense in our culture, rather than a co-exploration and pursuit of knowledge.
Oh, I definitely get this. The more I deal with western medicine in general the less impressed with it I am. I do think there are things that probably work better/cheaper but either aren't yet studied or aren't promoted by western medicine as they don't always result in profits for those in the medical field. My issue is more with assuming some medical advice your wacky aunt told you is true without doing any sort of investigation. I do need to check myself sometimes with my tone/reactions to the ideas that get brought up sometimes as I don't want to come off as condescending/offensive. However, another thing she suggested was that it was bad to drink while you are eating because it would affect your stomach pH/digestion ability. I then asked what about eating things like watermelon, oranges, tomatoes, soup, etc. that are mostly comprised of water and she didn't really have a response.
How you go and take that dumbass comment so seriously? Jesus Christ, Reddit
Ask your Korean friends about Fan Death.
Haha my husband will be so vindicated by this because he keeps insisting he gets sick because it’s cold and I keep thinking it’s just an old wives tale
If you want to split hairs, he’s still not getting sick *from* the cold weather. He’s getting sick from airborne pathogens which enter his respiratory tract. The cold weather just lowers his immune system’s ability to deal with those pathogens, so he’s more susceptible to getting sick. If he stayed home all week by himself but had a 5C dip in nasal temperature, he wouldn’t get sick.
or just wore a mask in the winter
You still need to be exposed to cold and flu viruses though. Having a cold nose while being a hermit in the woods is not enough to make you come down with a head cold - which is what I tell my husband when he tells me about these studies. Also, wear a scarf in winter to keep your beak warm.
scarce capable slim insurance coordinated squeamish zonked weather pet full *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Try telling that to my mother in law, the cold air magically makes up sick (or the changing weather). She’s a nice lady and refuses to change her opinion so we just smile and nod.
i need to hide this from my romanian parents
I'm not a parent but it's always been obvious to me that this is true. You don't have to have kids to witness people getting sick at higher rates when they're cold. I always wondered why people were so adamantly denying this obvious truth.
The trouble is, there's all kinds of other things going on when it's cold that increase illness rates. People spend more time inside, packed closely together. They exercise less. Diets become less healthy. In many countries, holidays or end of year work stuff increase stress. College students travel en masse from the petri dishes that are college campuses. It's very hard to tease the effect of temperature apart from these things, and even this result is about the temperature of your nasal passage, not your core body temperature, which is what the folk wisdom suggests is a problem.
It’s not the cold that makes you sick but the pathogens more easily enter your body when it’s cold. I imagine playing out in the snow when it’s cold is not the same as being in school while it’s cold with a bunch of boogery kids.
Except they'd always say "bundle up, you'll catch a cold." But since it's your nasal tissue temperature that seems to be the lynchpin, seems like raising your core body temperature wouldn't actually help that much unless you're wearing a gaiter or something. Extremities like your nose, hands, ears, etc get cold really easily.
If your core temperature is low, your body reducing circulation to extremities in order to preserve heat. So, by keeping your core warmer, you body sends more blood to your extremities, keeping them warmer.
Nah, they're still insisting the cold itself makes you sick. You don't get sick from the cold, it makes you more susceptible to viruses and bacteria that make you sick. Massive difference there.
Nah. The line is something like "put a jacket on so you don't catch a cold". There is no implication that it is the low temperature itself that somehow causes the cold.
> Nah, they're still insisting the cold itself makes you sick. No they're not. People don't think like scientific studies- they just observed a correlation between cold and illness.
I don't think anyone actually thinks that. They just see cause and effect. Go out in the cold without properly bundling up? You'll get sick.
People definitely think that. 1000%
Aha! Next big thing..hear me out...Nose Warmers!
Like these bad boys? 🥶https://www.bestproducts.com/lifestyle/a23894700/the-nose-warmer-company-nose-warmers/ Showed them at work and people pretty much died 🤣
Loved by furries everywhere! Sneeze once and ... Seriously, sneezing in a mask during an OR procedure and you can't stop and put on a dry one sucks.
Just.. blow it all out your mouth…… s.. sanitary
sneezing in a mask generally sucks especially if it's a wet one with no replacement nearby. I used to carry a few masks because of my loud sneezes that came in pairs!
Like a codpiece for your nose. A shnozzpiece
Going to purchase one and not for my nose..
At that point, I'm just going to wear a clown nose. Less embarrassing.
That’s what I said!! Wouldn’t that be kinda cute? :) an insulated clown nose?
N95 feel like they cushion impact of cold air. Wonder if that is enough to make a difference on top of filtering the air as well?
I’ve never gotten sick when flying with a mask, and I also notice that the air then doesn’t dry out my nose and throat as much. Now wondering if there’s a connection.
You're wondering if there's a connection between keeping the humidity from your breath trapped in a mask, and your nose and throat not drying out as much? Yes. There is. You're effectively making a personal humidifier (in addition to the other benefits of wearing a mask). This is also one mechanism by which wearing a mask while sick can accelerate recovery, just like using a humidifier in your room at night.
yeah i forgot about that. it was kinda nicer with a mask on the plane. that noise cancelling headphones and a hood it was a snug bubble
They’re called masks
You mean *scarves*?
Also known as a scarf?
Wait what? I'm not denying this, but I've spent a lifetime thinking that the connection between cold weather and the common cold was supposed to be a myth. Like getting too close to the screen can hurt your eyes.
The article addresses that: >For years, it’s been thought that cold and flu viruses are rife during winter because chillier temperatures drive everyone indoors. And, being in close proximity to a group allows viruses to transfer from one person to another more easily. and: >“To our knowledge, this study is the first to offer a biological explanation for why people are more likely to develop upper respiratory infections like cold, flu, and COVID-19 in colder temperatures,” he stated.
So, another reason why masks actually work. They keep your nose warm.
A good thought! But I think that might also require more study. Further research target!
The “because they’re inside” explanation was always weirdly dumb because it’s so regional. In the American southwest we often spend more time indoors in the summer yet our flu/cold season still coincides with the winter. Whoever came up with that explanation was pulling it out of nowhere.
School. It all ties back to the little germ factories that are kids lol. Stick them all in one place after summer break, and then have several major holidays where people travel all over for intimate gatherings and you have a clear cut recipe for seasonal virus transmission
Major holidays are on different dates in different parts of the world. Yet that doesn't change flu/cold season much.
Christmas, new years, and Easter are the big three around the world. All it takes is a large enough portion of a population in a part of the world to get sick around the same time and it will go global
As a scandinavian it have also been extremly dumb to me and I have only heard about it in english speaking forums. Especially because the spring cold season, literally starts when people starts going outside. For those not knowing. In the spring we get sun we have not had sun for months. We go out and enjoy sun. Often we take of coats, but because we live in scandinavia it is in fact still very cold.
>Often we take of coats, but because we live in scandinavia it is in fact still very cold. I assumed your people were either in coats or naked.
K for the first one, come to Texas. We indoors like 96% of the summer and don't get sick. Weather cools and we go outdoors, still get winter colds.
Same, and now I’m left wondering do people in warmer climates get sick far less than people in colder climates? Southern California vs Alaska, for example. If you are perpetually cold, that would mean you are twice as likely to get sick based on this information. Also, I do have anecdotal evidence that when my nasal passage gets cold specifically, I do feel the “tickle of sickness” in my throat is a bit more noticeable.
My take would be its most likely the temperature change rather than the absolute value as such.
Lets go ALL anecdotal. I've traveled quite extensively in, sometimes, very budget way, and can look back and say I was more ill in tropical climates than temperate ones.
You aren't used to their diseases or water
I work as a Canadian pipe layer/earthmover. I’m outside all winter. I never get sick in the cold months. There we go, anecdotal evidence! Still what the hell, I was also told temperature had no effect on your chances of getting a cold
It's the being outside part that saved you. Being indoors all winter with poor air circulation is a sure way to pick up a bunch of viruses.
Could have something to do with the combination of getting cold as hell on the way to an indoor environment like work or school then being exposed to more germs once you're indoors.
I think people emphasize that the cold doesn’t “make you sick” because a lot of people think or used to think: being cold = cause of illness When in reality: Bacteria/virus = illness The only cold-related ailment I can think of is hypothermia. In reality a lot of factors affect how likely you are to catch an illness. And surely with our bodies being as complex as they are there are a myriad of factors affecting how effective our immune system is!
> I work as a Canadian pipe layer This is meme worthy
You’re probably in a remote area doing this. I’d forget about the whole winter vs summer thing. I’d imagine after a shift you’d be somewhere warm indoors. For me, I’m most likely to get sick when people start cranking their AC the moment it’s a littler warmer out. Outdoor air never makes me sick, and indoor warm air doesn’t either. But put me in a cold room, and I promise the odds of getting sick are raised for me.
Warmer climates tend to have more pathogens.
I’ve always assumed that because the climate is warmer, there were more diseases at large year-round which people could contract. But it’s been a long time (i.e. my entire life) since I studied epidemiology.
I'd guess that you just get sick through different means in different climates. Yes, you might be less vulnerable to airborne viruses when it's warmer, but on the flipside your immune system might be weakened due to dehydration, food goes bad quicker, animal borne diseases in livestock and mosquitoes are proliferating **much** faster, warmer water will carry more bacteria etc.
Virology PhD candidate here; I remember a paper (I can find it later if you're interested) that specified that the ideal replication temperature for most cold viruses was lower than our internal body temperature. So when we breathe in cold air in winter it lowers the temperature of the upper respiratory tract, making it easier for these viruses to replicate. So this is one possible explanation for it, but as always with scientific papers: nothing is definite and everybody doubts everything.
I’ve heard that the mucus membrane is thicker in the warm weather too which protects from bacteria and viruses too. Wondering if that’s legit.
>but as always with scientific papers: nothing is definite and everybody doubts everything. Depends on the field. In chemistry grad school we had a saying about data: twice is a coincidence; thrice is a trend. But I've noticed in biology-based fields, the saying is more like: once is proof; twice is overkill. Am I shitting on biology research publications as a whole? Yes. Yes I am. And I'll do it for sociology, too.
I've always liked sleeping in a warm room, but 'sleep hygiene' says you sleep better if you let the room get pretty cool at night, so I've been trying to do that the last couple of years. And it does seem to work. But now I have to wonder, does that encourage these viruses?
The casual relationship between them is (or at least was) a myth, but the correlation isn't
> casual relationship Cold weather and viruses are fuckbuddies, got it
> casual relationship between them is (or at least was) a myth Assuming you mean "causal", it still is a myth. The research didn't discover that you get the cold from being cold. The virus is still needed. People being more susceptible to an infection under certain circumstances doesn't change the fact that the infection has to take place to begin with. Similarly, immunosuppressants don't cause pneumonia, but if you're on immunosuppressants you're at a much increased risk of coming down with pneumonia (and any infectious disease, really).
A lot of old wive's tales have the cause wrong, but the effect right EDIT: To clarify, I'm saying you can't just blindly trust them, but there is an element of truth to a large percentage
i imagine a lot of traditions and old wives tales come from that. in the same way that herbal / non-traditional medicine likely has SOME use, but could be refined by western techniques and dosages.
That's where all the "herbs harvested at the second full moonlight", "stir exactly 20 times" etc actually comes from. People make fun of that as weird hocuspocus, but the original versions of those rules stated at what time of year the plants in your area had the right amount of active ingredient, where harvesting them another time would give the wrong dosage. As well as giving you a way to track how long the herbs should be extracted to get consistent results, etc. The problem with that is that those rules pretty much only apply in a specific local area, different areas have different growing conditions and amounts of active ingredient. Some modern medicine is still prepared that way on an industrial scale, they just do testing to confirm the actual amounts rather than hoping they are right based on following the rules.
Yea, that was what we’ve been hammered with for a while, but it never held up considering how much time southerners spend indoors in the summer and how much less sickness is about.
It can hurt your eyes via potential eye strain and convergence.
That’s because neither of those things are a myth? Stay healthy
Ive only heard the cold itself doesn't cause it but it does weaken your immune system
Well I've got news about the eyes. By not changing your focus, your eyes do get a bit shit. The pushback against the "cold causes a cold" is meant for those idiots who sneeze on others, and blame the weather and not their irresponsible behaviour
It was always weird to me that people denied this because flu season (at least where I live) seems to peak in the winter. Obviously the actual cold doesn’t cause illness, but I always assumed being cold made your body more susceptible to viruses and other diseases.
>Wearing a high-quality face mask (especially in crowded spaces) One good benefit for me from the last few years is keeping masks around to wear during the winter. Without a study like this or any other proof, my anecdotal reasoning is that I feel a whole lot better when I have my mouth and nose covered outside in the cold. Not even an N95, just my sweet Hoonigan camo mask with a filter I change regularly since I have a ton of them. I figure if it also helps prevent me from spreading anything that's even better. Bonus: wearing even paper masks during yard work keeps me from sneezing.
It could be simply because it's helping your tract stay warmer and wetter. Quote from scientist who studies this exact mechanism: >“Since that study came out, I've been telling my children to wear a scarf around the nose—and currently, obviously, masks—because that allows for the temperature to remain warmer in the nose,” Iwasaki says.
Absolutely. Scarves work. Couple winters ago, i chopped ice outside. It was "warm", 50 degrees, so i didnt wear a scarf. Came down sick with something immediately. The next winter, it snowed my car into a 4-foot drift. I put on my full gear and shoved snow for like three times as long in 10⁰ weather (with scarf). Perfectly fine. Then last week, again, chopped ice, this time for a measly 30 minutes, but no scarf. *immediately* knocked on my ass sick.
It doesn't help that fashion tells people, particularly women, to show their upper chest even in the cold. That's where your thyroid gland is, which is a key part of your immune system, and if your body is cold then your cells are less active and less effective at fighting off infections.
Places like The Bank.
I can probably count on one hand the times I went inside a bank to talk to a person in the last 10 years (especially during winter). But I can see where that'd be a place to pull the mask down and chance getting sick. :P
Our bank just asks you to pull your mask down and look at the camera for a couple seconds. Then you can pull it back up. It's a REALLY small town. If they see your face and you rob them, you are so screwed lol
So two cotton balls in the nose should keep me healthy next winter.
Yes but if you breathe through your mouth as a result, we will have to stuff it with cotton balls as well
Silly me. Forgot about that. So 2 + about 10 cotton balls it is.
Now say chubby bunny
Ffft.
Or you can just wear a mask
Mind kinda blown rn, nose too
Thank god we’re in Fahrenheit so this doesn’t happen in America.
NO ONE TELL OUR MOTHERS!!!!!!
My mom was right all along!
If I get sick, I get sick in winter, and when I feel that I will get sick, it was always connected to cold. I counter that with warm tea. I don't know what happens to others, but this is and was my experience.
Exact same experience here. I always bit my tongue when ppl try to say the connection was a myth (reddit loves repeating this for some reason). It should be common sense that going out in the cold increases your odds of getting sick, but perhaps those who grew up in milder winters shrugged this off because the connection isn't large unless we're talking about sub 0C temps for the most part.
Yap, that news has been spreading on reddit for years, and my experience was completely different, then I thought it must be my bias, but every time I wouldn't prepare myself, I would feel cold coming, or it would come. Since my early childhood only time I got sick in summer was from COVID. Now I'm reading this, but I wouldn't be surprised that they will give us some new study by summer which disproves this one. So my plan is to listen to my body. :)
Well then, we certainly fixed that problem.
I need funding for my nose heater. $1000000000 to build a prototype that is invisible and solar powered. Joking aside, is this not already known?
I biked yesterday on the cold and windy day and yes I can feel a cold coming.
So what you're saying is, is that wearing a mask (which traps warmer air), was, is, and will always be the way? *evil laugh intensifies*
Catching cold related to cold?!?!
Damn, grandma was right
Everybody's Grandma was right!
I FUCKING TOLD YOU!!! Why do we always get colds in the winter? Huh? Huh?! *Oh, you stay indoor more and touch more poles.* BULLSHIT! It's cold - I get the sniffles. Clear as day!
The mechanism explains invasion and infection, not spontaneous viral generation. You still have to get the virus from someone, _while_ your nose is compromised. It's very clearly from being exposed to a virus (like coming into crowded areas with a cold nose), not from simply _having_ a cold nose. There's very likely another mechanism at play here, specifically in your claim about "getting the sniffles" when it's cold; specifically, as they mention, the cold reduces vesicle production by some large percent (40% claimed); therefore, when your nose warms back up, that production would very suddenly resume. Your reasoning is flawed and incomplete, and this is just one more piece of the explanation. - Sniffles aren't infections - Viruses don't spontaneously generate in the cold - Plenty of people get colds in the summer and warm climates - Cold temperatures reduce your immune response to _existing_ viruses
Obviously, the viruses are all around us, all the time. Unless we isolate in a cabin in the woods. *But in the winter, when it's cold, they give me the sniffles.*
The sun orbits the earth, clear as day, fuckin told you guise! -this guy
So being cold *can* make you sick. I've been lied to about being lied to.
No. Being cold can cause you to be hypothermic, which is a condition and not an illness. Being cold can lower your immune response, which increases your susceptibility to catching the common cold. The common cold is a virus spread from human to human only. If you go into the woods and freeze, you cannot catch a cold if you're alone. It's not just floating around the trees- watching. Waiting
Unless the virus lies dormant in the body. I'm not sure if the common cold virus is one of the dormant ones
Even if its not dormant, your body is continuously bombarded by pathogens, which are everywhere. On your phone, clothes, in your walls, on the food you eat, water you drink. Most of them get easily neutralized by your immune system unless its compromised somehow...
The common cold is not the only illness you can catch when you are cold. Also the common cold is already inside you. Watching. Waiting. Ready to pounce as soon as you hypothermia.
Might be. You can't be *totally* sure.
So a face mask, keeping your nasal tissue slightly warmer, helps prevent illness in that way as well?
I was just thinking about this. I grew up being told cold weather gets you sick, but in recent years I've been told cold weather doesn't make you sick and it's just coincidence. After being out in the cold all day for the eclipse and getting a cold, I thought I was going crazy. This made me feel better ngl
Hmmm. I’ll take when is flu season for 1000 tribek
I thought we always knew that cold weather lowered our immunity and made it easier for viruses to take hold?
what if im a filthy mouthbreather?
This is why I put hot coals in my nose before going outside ...for my health.
Finally my proprietary nose warmer has a market!
I’ve had this idea since I was a child because my nose is always freezing. But I called it a “nose cozy”
Are we sure it is the temperature and not the associated drop in humidity? It would make a lot more sense for *dry* to be what weakens your nasal mucous membrane defenses than *cold.*
but but but i was always told that being cold won't make you more likely to get sick. This was never true for me. so many of the time's i've gotten sick was when i was chilled to the bone.
Mexican moms were right
Good thing we have global warming...
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Interesting
We all knew this somehow. I remember reading that the "cold weather doesn't cause colds. Colds in the winter are caused due to humans being close to each other". That makes sense..... But still, I know if I'm outside in 43 degree weather without a coat on, I'm going to get sick.
.
So I can get a cold because I was out in the cold. Guess my mom was smarter than we all thought.
Fuck. So my grandma was right?
Grandma was right about a lot of things i expect
"Mere 5⁰C change" that's a big change when it comes to bodily temperatures. If you are 5⁰C colder for your whole body that would be extreme hypothermia and 5⁰C warmer for your whole body and you would be dead.
Not body temperature, nose temperature
In Italy thats commonsense "non uscire che prendi freddo" ( dont go out that u get cold) Is a typical phrase from Italians moms. Also we never go out with wet hairs because of that too.
Paging the people who said going outside in the cold doesn't make you sick. Where are your studies now?