Myth-busting

[Marlow]

Interesting article in USA Today, busting some common myths

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... yths_N.htm

Two that I always thought true:

* Too much sugar makes kids hyper
* Being exposed in wet or cold weather depresses one's immune system, allowing colds to start.

[bad hammy]

Another myth busted: the knowledge of T&FN message board posters and the quality of their posts has any relation to the quantity of their posts . . .

:P

[gh]

Re: Myth-busting

....
* Being exposed in wet or cold weather depresses one's immune system, allowing colds to start.

I'm pretty sure you raised this on the board 3-4 years ago, were told it wasn't true, and then cited some USATF Coaching Clinic sourcing that made the claim.

[gm]

One of my biggest pet peeves... people saying cold weather makes you sick. Were that the case, vast portions of the Upper Midwest and Scandinavia would be unpopulated.

[Marlow]

Re: Myth-busting

I'm pretty sure you raised this on the board 3-4 years ago, were told it wasn't true, and then cited some USATF Coaching Clinic sourcing that made the claim.

Let's see, trust some yahoo poster here, or a USAfrickinTF Coaching Clinician! Let me think . . . I choose to believe this is a case of the blind squirrel finding a nut!!! :twisted:

[Bruce Kritzler]

One of my biggest pet peeves... people saying cold weather makes you sick. Were that the case, vast portions of the Upper Midwest and Scandinavia would be unpopulated.

Aren't vast portions of upper Canada and Scandinavia and Siberia underpopulated?

[Pego]

Re: Myth-busting

Interesting article in USA Today, busting some common myths

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... yths_N.htm

Two that I always thought true:

* Too much sugar makes kids hyper
* Being exposed in wet or cold weather depresses one's immune system, allowing colds to start.

Exposure to a damp, cold environment does reduce an ability to withstand certain infections in certain individuals. Those germs are sitting in your upper respiratory passages already and certain conditions (including damp and cold) activates it to action. That's why "the whole upper midwest, Canada and Scandinavia" is still populated.

The study cited in the article when "they inserted germs in people's nasal passages and nothing happened" is nonsense. The germs causing it are there already.

[Daisy]

Re: Myth-busting

Exposure to a damp, cold environment does reduce an ability to withstand certain infections in certain individuals.

This is what my wife keeps telling me. And she is always right

[Pego]

Re: Myth-busting

Exposure to a damp, cold environment does reduce an ability to withstand certain infections in certain individuals.

This is what my wife keeps telling me. And she is always right

So is mine. Tandfman said a couple of weeks ago, so is his .

[Marlow]

Re: Myth-busting

Exposure to a damp, cold environment does reduce an ability to withstand certain infections in certain individuals.

But according to this article, that is untrue (and gh scolded me for believing it!)

[Pego]

Re: Myth-busting

Exposure to a damp, cold environment does reduce an ability to withstand certain infections in certain individuals.

But according to this article, that is untrue (and gh scolded me for believing it!)

Look above at my last sentence.

[gh]

As Pego noted, damp/cold can reduce ability to resist certain infections in certain individuals.

As i learned when I was a bacteriology major, the reason you get a higher incidence of colds in the winter is because you spend more time inside breathing everybody else's air (and touching things more conducive to a virus staying alive to be picked up than outside in the bright sun).

But as this web notation says <<It’s almost impossible to catch a cold in Antarctica. You can freeze to death, but you won’t get sick because it is too cold for most bacteria and viruses to survive.>>

If there's one thing pathogens love it's 98.6 (or 37, if you prefer) with nice moist membranes.

[Pego]

As Pego noted, damp/cold can reduce ability to resist certain infections in certain individuals.

As i learned when I was a bacteriology major, the reason you get a higher incidence of colds in the winter is because you spend more time inside breathing everybody else's air (and touching things more conducive to a virus staying alive to be picked up than outside in the bright sun).

But as this web notation says <<It’s almost impossible to catch a cold in Antarctica. You can freeze to death, but you won’t get sick because it is too cold for most bacteria and viruses to survive.>>

If there's one thing pathogens love it's 98.6 (or 37, if you prefer) with nice moist membranes.

It's true that it is unlikely to acquire the germs from the outside in extremely cold places. My point is that the majority of the pathogens are already inside of us, mostly in the upper respiratory passages. Even a killer such as a meningococcus persists in most children/adolescents, yet only a few of them get sick (fortunately). As far as I know, nobody knows, what activates it.