Posted on 01/10/2011 5:21:46 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Cold weather really does spread flu
12:19 19 October 2007
by Debora MacKenzie
Scientists have finally confirmed what your mother knew all along - that flu spreads best in cold, dry weather.
As the first few cases of the northern hemisphere's annual flu epidemic are trickling in this week, scientists may finally know why winter is flu season. It appears the virus lasts longer in cold, dry air, and our sluggish, cold-weather mucus cannot clear it out.
Astonishingly it has taken until the publication of research this week to settle the basic question about how flu spreads, and why it girdles each hemisphere every year during winter. Ironically, that research was made possible by the rediscovery of a report by army doctors in 1919.
Flu is hard to study in the lab because virtually no lab animals get it the way humans do. Mice, for example, do not get the same strains, or catch flu from each other. The most useful animal has been the ferret.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Never date a ferret.
I’ve always thought that a drying of the mucous membranes was a big factor in the spreading of colds/flu but this refutes that.
“They’re big, they’re expensive, and they bite,”
Kennedys? Obama’s czars? Or Michelle?
School has an impact on the spreading in winter also
This is bizarre—last night, I was doing a Google search about whether you could catch viruses outside, but came up with essentially nothing. Then you posted this article—thanks!!!
So there is some truth about cold weather spreading viruses. I wonder if cold fronts bring viruses, and if you can catch them outside, without ever having close contact with someone who is infected? And where do the viruses originate in the first place? Somehow, I doubt the stork brings them. ;)
I believe they were actually referring to Rosie O'Donnell. ;)
Low vitamin D levels is a better indicator of flu susceptibility.
During warm weather, a lot of people spend a lot more time outside in the yard, at the park, at the beach, etc. When you think about how much more time is spent by more people indoors during cold weather, it simply stands to reason that a higher percentage of people spend a higher percentage of their time in close proximity to one another in cold weather, making it much more likely that an airborne virus like the flu will have a greater opportunity of spreading and infecting more people.
Thanks. I’ve already had one round of a bug this winter.
Yup. I just get the feeling that parts of the scientific community are eager if not desperate to find a reason for the "cold and flu season" that doesn't involve sunlight/Vitamin D.
I got two rounds so far. You are doing better than me.:-)
...I would imagine that metabolic changes triggered by shorter periods of daylight have to have some impact on the immune system. Also seasonal diet items. Just thinking about my own diet, I probably take in a lot more vitamin C in the warm weather just in terms of lemon aid and lime aid...hardly any of which I drink in the winter.
So if your nose runs constantly, you’re less likely to contract the virus?
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