The key to avoiding a cold is as simple as keeping your nose warm with a scarf when you go outside in winter.
According to research, low temperatures make it harder for the body to repel the bug that causes some colds in adults and all kinds of colds in children.
The study backs up the popular notion that people are more likely to catch a cold if they get chilly, by not putting on a coat in winter or going out with wet hair.
However, scientists say that coughs and sneezes are not caused by a drop in temperature; instead, they stated that the virus spreads easier when everyone stays indoors in stuffy rooms.
The US researchers studied the behavior of the rhinovirus; the bug considered the biggest cause of the common cold, and how well it grew and multiplied in cells kept at different temperatures.
The findings showed that it is easier for the germ to breed at 33 degrees C, the sort of temperature typically found inside the nose, than at the 37 degrees C found deep inside the body.
The experiments, published in details in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, were carried out on cells taken from mice. But the Yale University researchers say the results may also be relevant to humans.
Britain’s leading expert on the common cold, Ron Eccles, advises those who want to avoid colds to wrap a scarf around their nose when out during the winter.
‘Crowding is a factor for catching a cold but I do believe that the cooling of the nose is important. During the winter, we wrap up in overcoats but don’t put anything over our nose,” Professor Eccles, director of Cardiff University’s Common Cold Center, explained.
In a series of recommendations to avoid cold, Professor Eccles suggested a woolen scarf over the nose, as well as trying to take vitamin D, since the body tends to be low on it during the winter.
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