Staying Warm Really Can Ward Off A Cold

Some wives’ tales turn out to be true. Maybe. A Yale University news release reports that researchers at the school are convinced that the common cold virus can reproduce itself more efficiently in the cooler temperature found inside the nose than at core body temperature, suggesting that there is truth to the popular notion that people are more likely to catch a cold in cool-weather conditions. The researchers examined cells taken from the airways of mice, and compared the immune response to rhinovirus when cells were incubated at 37 degrees Celsius, or core body temperature, and at the cooler 33 degrees Celsius. What did they find? The envelope please… “We found that the innate immune response to the rhinovirus is impaired at the lower body temperature compared to the core body temperature,” says Yale professor of immunobiology Akiko Iwasaki, who is also an investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Wait, there’s more: The study also strongly suggested that the varying temperatures influenced the immune response, rather than the virus itself. Watch a video of the research.