1. Our parents always bundled us up as children no matter how briefly we’d be outside. “You’ll catch your death of Cold!”.
Have their been any science studies on this? Is getting chilled a major factor in catching colds, flu, or pneumonia?
If you go outside in shirtsleeves in 40 degree weather, for a few minutes, to push the garbage bin to the curb. Are you risking a cold or flu?
How about getting drizzled on and cold? Last night I got caught half-way to the curb with the garbage bin and it started sprinkling pretty hard. I felt the chill for sure and dried off my arms and neck with a towel. The entire event lasted less than 8 minutes.
Do you have to bundled up for a few minutes in the cold & rain or risk getting sick?
**2. ** How about people that work outside in the cold? Of course they bundled up in coats and heavy clothing. Does exposure (8 hours or more) to the cold and rain make them more susceptible to colds or flu?
I had a buddy in the 1970’s that worked at a service station gassing up cars. I felt so bad for him in the winter. Rain always got down his coat collar, his neck was wet and at times looked pretty miserable. But, I don’t recall him being sick. He was pretty young and that may have made a difference.
There is a correlation, not a causation. Even in the cite above, it explains that people staying indoors during cold weather produces an increase in cold and flu due closer contact. There are varying results from studies on the effect of cold dry air on nasal passages, and increased susceptibility to disease. But these are indirect effects, not caused by cold temperatures.
I worked outside all last winter. Many days below -20 C and a bunch below -30 C, This is far colder than ‘rain down your collar’. I am one of those people that usually catch every cold and flu that goes around, and it is not uncommon for me to be sick for weeks or even months at a time. Last winter I don’t think I had one serious cold. I am not recommending a winter outside in Alberta to anyone, but I do not think there is any correlation between a little chill and the flu.
Several winters ago I fell through ice skiing across a creek. I was completely submerged (upside down!) for close to a minute. This was several kilometers in the backcountry, middle of nowhere, -25 C; we had nothing to do but continue on after a very hasty change of under shirt and gloves. I was not hypothermic, but I wasn’t about to stop for any rest breaks. We skied for several hours until returning to camp, where after a change of clothes I slept outside in my sleeping bag. Long story short, I experienced a pretty serious chill, never got sick from it.
I’ve never bought the theory that colds are more common in the winter because people spend more time indoors. I live in Tucson, and we spend the long, hot summers huddled together by the air conditioner, and when it’s winter we spend the glorious cool days playing outside. And yet we still get colds in the winter.
But all the studies show that cold weather does make you more likely to get a cold or flu:
I recall my mothers grandparents house was very cold at night. Their gas came straight out of the oil fields and wasn’t reliable. It could stop and then come back on minutes or hours later. It wasn’t safe to sleep with the gas spaces heaters on. You might not wake up. Every winter there was at least one or two families that died that way. My granddad always insisted the space heaters had to be off when they went to bed.
Without any heat at night the rooms got very cold. Glasses of water on a nightstand would freeze. There were multiple quilts on the beds.
They didn’t seem to get sick anymore than anyone else. But they did wear more clothing in the house then we do today. Sitting around in a t-shirt and drawers wasn’t something you’d do in that house in the winter. Even in bed you wore heavy pj’s.
On the other hand, I think that once you already have a cold, if you get a bad chill it’s more likely you’ll get pneumonia than if you hadn’t gotten the chill. I could be wrong, and I can’t find a cite.
I am a little confused about your post. I live in Palmdale, CA and I compared the climate charts on Wikipedia* between Tucson and Palmdale and they seem to be pretty close. Where I live it gets pretty cold in the winter but not unbearably hot in the summer where you would have to spend all day in the A/C. If I am right about the similarities in climate of Palmdale and Tucson then I still think we spend much more time indoors in the Winter than we do in the Summer which would explain why we get sick during those months.
Just to add, I work “outdoors” meaning its indoors but the garage doors are wide open. I wear a short sleeved shirt until it gets below 45 F and then I will wear a light sweater. Coldest I have noticed during working hours is 25 F. I am constantly moving so I don’t really mind it. I rarely if ever get sick. Even in the winter. I should add that I live alone and rarely have people over. I think it has more to do with close contact than with temperature.
We’ve already done a thread on whether opening a house’s windows to air it out makes you sick (SD-fu not working today)-apparently that’s a common urban legend in some parts of Europe.
You might not realize you are getting chilled if you have a fever, but I can’t see how getting a chill cause a cold virus to infect your lungs. It only makes sense if you buy into “being in cold temperatures makes you sick.”
living in cold weather is different than being cold. Therefore, the studies are flawed from that respect. I’ve found, from personal experience, that exposure to cold increases my chances of getting the sniffles. And by exposure I mean physically getting cold. I’m sticking with Grandma’s advice.
The sniffles may be nothing but irritated mucous membranes, which cold temperatures can cause. But it isn’t necessarily related to an infection. I’ve seen opinions that the sniffles serve as protection against infection, and others that say that they increase the chance of infection.
I used to be a forklift operator loading reefer trucks from a -20f freezer, with blast fans inside and air curtains at the doors, and I never got sick. I think that environment was probably more sterile than the outside air.
And the absolute best hangover cure is an uncovered head in a blast freezer. About 20 minutes will cure the worst night you have ever had.
Colds and flu are caused by virus’, not your environment. The reason that people think getting chilled causes sickness is because getting the chills and feeling cold are the first symptoms of the virus that you caught a few days ago, taking hold of you. So it is was a reasonable assumption to connect the two as cause and effect, before the modern causes of disease were understood.
OK, by the sniffles I meant a cold. I suspect that we carry cold germs with us 24/7 that are normally taken care of by our immune system. I could easily see where a drop in body temperature affects the efficiency of that system.
But your body temperature does not drop when you are cold. Your body temperature drops when your suffering from hypothermia. Your skin temperature may drop significantly in cold weather but your core temperature will stay nearly constant.
hypothermia is an arbitrary number that is applied arbitrarily. It is not a light switch event where bad things happen on one side of the line. While the body does a good job regulating temperature it is not a linear event as the temperature drops.
If you want to play in the snow without a jacket you go right ahead. I’m still listening to Grandma because I’ve gotten colds after working outdoors without proper outerwear.
I’ve always thought it most likely that limited exposure to cold does not impede (and may even enhance) the immune system, while prolonged exposure does the opposite.
Anecdote: As a wrestler in high school, we routinely ran for ~30-40 minutes in sub-freezing temperatures for conditioning and “weight management.” Overall, I would say that we had a rather low incidence of cold/flu, despite the fact that we were subsequently wrestling (sweating, breathing, etc) in a confined space with limited ventilation and high heat (again, “weight management”). On the other hand, one of the worst cold/flu situations I ever had was while working on the WTC recovery, spending 15+ hrs/day outside in the wintry elements. I ended up having to work through it with a 104 degree fever and almost no sleep.
Conclusion: Prolonged exposure to cold (or other weather conditions) can tax all of your bodily systems, including immune responses. But periodically shocking those same systems can kick the systems into overdrive.
Or perhaps I was brainwashed by coaching staff who wanted me to get to the next-lower weight class.