Cold Weather And Colds
[This little article is more than a couple of years old, but the cold weather is still with us, so I’m reposting it here.]
Does cold weather bring on colds?
Were you ever told to bundle up on a winter day so you wouldn’t catch cold?
Have you ever said this to your children?
Our daughter has been visiting the snow belt she once called home. The other day she remarked it was nice we kept the house warm, after seeing some friends who kept the temperature relatively cool. She was afraid the baby would catch cold in that environment.
Of course, cold weather doesn’t cause colds. As her husband quickly pointed out, colds are caused by viruses.
But this got me thinking. Why is it that we suffer from colds in colder weather?
Is it because we are more confined and the cold virus is more easily spread when people gather in closed quarters?
This is a common assumption and there might be a little bit to it, but no more than a small, contributing factor.
Is because cold weather is harder on us and brings our resistance down? Maybe there’s something to that, as well. Or maybe it’s having the cold that brings our resistance down.
But I think there’s something else, something that’s overlooked. Something I’ve never heard mentioned that makes a lot of sense when we look at what we do know about colds. Cold weather simply makes it easier for the cold virus to survive.
In fact, as Dan Lee Dimke has demonstrated in his cold cure procedure, cold viruses can be destroyed and colds cured with the proper application of heat and humidity.
As a practical matter, I’ve found that using colloidal silver is faster and easier than the process he describes, but heat and humidity address the issue of colds and why we usually get them during the winter months and not during the summer.
To better understand this, let’s look at how a cold works. A cold is basically a nasal infection. It can lead to sore throats and other things, but a cold lives and dies in your nose. The rhinovirus, strains of which account for most colds, gets its name from that fact. Rhino means nose.
Cold viruses thrive at temperatures slightly cooler than the 98.6 degrees considered normal. So when faced with this invader, your body’s first defense is stuffiness. Why? Because breathing through your nose keeps your nasal passages cooler and the virus alive. But when you get stuffy and are forced to breathe through your mouth, your nose, no longer air cooled, reaches a higher temperature and becomes a much less friendly environment for the virus. The virus dies, and after your body does some necessary cleanup and repair work, you’re good as new.
So what does cold weather have to do with it? Well, Dr. Watson, cold, dry, winter air is just what the virus needs. Even in the snow belt, here, summer temperatures are generally in the 80’s and 90’s, the humidity is high, and breathing warm air makes it hard for the nose to stay cool while the rest of you is sweating. During the winter, with most thermostats set below 70 degrees, probably in the 65 to 68 degrees range, the nose, which isn’t dressed to stay warm, becomes an easy breeding ground for the cold virus. And of course, the dry, winter air helps it along.
