Between my most recent gaffe and this news I'm tempted to just give up on science entirely.
Ok, not really. But it can be frustrating keeping up with the latest "conventional wisdom" when the conventions keep changing.
Most of us are aware that modern medical science pretty much relegated any link between becoming cold and wet and the actual catching of colds or flu to the status of an old wives' tale. Of course, when our mothers pooh-poohed our skepticism we just smiled condescendingly and nodded, "yes, Mother. Whatever you say." Our mothers, we reasoned, were in fact old wives, after all.
You see this coming, don't you? Well, scientific research at the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff, Wales, has now told us that they have
proof that a drop in body temperature can kickstart viruses which lie dormant in people during the cold season, from October to March.
And getting your feet wet, they found, can triple the risk of developing cold symptoms such as sore throat, sneezing and coughing.
...So while parents can now be confident in their advice to children to wrap up well in winter, the findings do contradict accepted scientific wisdom which dismisses a link between chilling and viral infection.
Professor Ron Eccles, of Cardiff University's Common Cold Centre, led the research and said the findings supported centuries of common sense thinking.
So now it was "common sense" all along, was it? Funny how "common sense" becomes redefined according to who currently feels the most confidence in his theories.
"Mothers can now be confident in their advice to children to wrap up well in winter," he told the Daily Mail.
I don't think these mothers' confidence is swayed much one way or another by your reports. They do confuse the rest of us, however.
"We have reports going back hundreds of years where people knew if they got soaking wet they were more likely to develop a cold, so it passed into folklore for good reason.
Again, funny how people either "knew" or merely "believed" these things, according to whoever's theories are currently in vogue.
"It's only today, when it's less likely that people will get drenched and they can warm up more quickly because of central heating, that the connection has been cast into doubt."
The research findings published in the medical journal Family Practice say the fact that common colds are more prevalent in the winter could be related to an increased incidence of chilling causing more clinical colds.
But another explanation could be our noses are colder in winter.
"A cold nose may be one of the major factors that causes common colds to be seasonal," Prof Eccles explained.
"When the cold weather comes, we wrap ourselves up in winter coats to keep warm, but our nose is directly exposed to the cold air.
"Cooling of the nose slows down clearance of viruses from the nose and slows down the white cells that fight infection."
Anyone becoming chilled and worrying about developing a cold could help themselves by warming up as quickly as possible, Prof Eccles added.
But the best protection against the miserable common cold could be simply to dress warmly in winter and keep feet dry.
And don't forget to wrap a scarf around that nose, sonny.
When I see my own mom on the 22nd of this month, maybe I should ask her if she ever saw a problem with the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. It can't hurt, and the bedtime stories she told me about her insights into wave-particle duality were always so inspiring and comforting to me as a child...
(Via Ralph Bristol.)
Posted by: Obi-Wan | Friday, 18 November 2005 at 01:38 PM