Can someone please tell all old people...

[klah]

...that colds are caused by viruses and not by coming in contact with cold air. The first person this winter that tells me to put on a coat/scarf/hat to prevent becoming sick is going to get punched* in the face.

Do most old people really not know that illnesses are caused by viruses and bacteria? Do they just say it (you'll catch cold) because their parents did, even though they know it is nonsense?

Maybe the AARP can make some flashcards:

Cold -> VIRUS
Flu ->VIRUS
Pneumonia -> VIRUS OR BACTERIA
Frost Bite -> Low Temperatures
Hypothermia -> Low Temperatures



*of course I mean figuratively, with facts.

 

[jadinolf]

Old people are dumb, not like you youngsters.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: klah
Cold -> VIRUS
Flu ->VIRUS
Pneumonia -> VIRUS OR BACTERIA
Frost Bite -> Low Temperatures
Hypothermia -> Low Temperatures

don't forget

Blind -> NO DRIVING
Senile -> NO DRIVING
Speed limit 60 -> DRIVE 60 (or more)
You're near a farmer's market -> SLOW DOWN

 

[Pacfanweb]

Maybe someone should tell you that we all carry viruses, and usually they have no effect on us.....unless we weaken ourselves by doing something...........like getting too cold, like kids do by going outside without a coat and playing.

 

[mitchafi]

Yea my grandmother always nags me about that when she is in town. She freaks out if I get out of the shower and stay in my towel for more than 5 minutes.

 

[Shawn]

Well technically when you are cold your body focuses its resources on keeping you warm and thus your immune system weakens.

 

[Amorphus]

Originally posted by: iloveme2
Well technically when you are cold your body focuses its resources on keeping you warm and thus your immune system weakens.

Negligibly so.

 

[Harvey]

And regardless of age, tell them antibiotics won't do anything to cure a cold, but they could do some serious damage a lot of other ways.

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Amorphus

Originally posted by: iloveme2
Well technically when you are cold your body focuses its resources on keeping you warm and thus your immune system weakens.

Negligibly so.

Perhaps.

 

[Ornery]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
Maybe someone should tell you that we all carry viruses, and usually they have no effect on us.....unless we weaken ourselves by doing something...........like getting too cold, like kids do by going outside without a coat and playing.

Most of us old people know this. I don't particularly care if this punk ever figures this out, though.

 

[Mo0o]

No, the reason people seem to get sick more during winter is because more stay indoors, where viruses can spread easier

 

[CheeWeenie]

Old folks > young folks.

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: CheeWeenie
Old folks > young folks.

In age, yes.

 

[klah]

Maybe someone should tell you that we all carry viruses, and usually they have no effect on us.....unless we weaken ourselves by doing something...........like getting too cold, like kids do by going outside without a coat and playing.

Well technically when you are cold your body focuses its resources on keeping you warm and thus your immune system weakens.

Do you make these up, or did your grandmother tell them to you?


Does exposure to cold weather make a person catch a cold or the flu? If yes, how does it happen? If no, why do people say that we get ill more easily in cold weather?

Provided by Jonathan Blum, M.D., Ph.D., Division of Infectious Disease, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School

Contrary to folk wisdom, exposure to cold does not seem to be responsible for catching a cold or the flu. A study published in the late 1960s, for example, showed that chilling volunteers (actually, prison inmates) did not make them more susceptible to infection with rhinovirus, one of the kinds of viruses that often cause colds, and did not make their colds worse.

Presumably, the reason people think exposure to cold causes colds and flu is that these illnesses are much more common in the winter. People figure that it's the cold air (the most obvious difference between winter and summer!) that causes the infections. Most people think it's true because when they get a cold in the winter, they think, "Last week I was out in the cold air, and now I'm sick." But they're not thinking of all the times they went out in the cold and didn't get sick. This phenomenon is called "recall bias"?people recall an event better when they believe it's connected to something that happened later.

------

http://www.drgreene.com/21_55.html

Studies conducted at the University of Virginia made the news when healthy adult volunteers cavorted in the snow with few clothes on and were found no more likely to catch respiratory infections than their companions indoors. Subsequently, at McMurdo Station, a US research base in Antarctica, several important studies have been carried out. (What better place to study the effect of cold temperature than Antarctica?) People in isolation at this base tended to get no colds at all -- unless visitors came from the outside. Specific viruses that the visitors brought to the station worked their way through the research compound at a rather leisurely pace, approximating the rate of cold acquisition in other climates. This demonstrated that cold temperature itself does not cause colds.

Sadly somehow people are still indoctrinated with this nonsense.

 

[mobobuff]

Originally posted by: iloveme2
Well technically when you are cold your body focuses its resources on keeping you warm and thus your immune system weakens.

Sure, but it's an even more intensive process when your body attempts to keep cool (swetting, higher rates of respiration, pores opening etc), but you don't ever hear people telling you to keep your clothes off in the heat so that you don't catch a cold, do you? Nope, it's just "heatstroke this, and heatstroke that", which last time I checked weren't contagious.

Damn summer colds are the worst, I have one right now.

 

[dighn]

a night's exposure to cold air does often give me runny nose or temporary sore throat though

 

[Geekbabe]

Originally posted by: jadinolf
Old people are dumb, not like you youngsters.

And we got old by having superior immune systems

 

[RbSX]

Originally posted by: klah
...that colds are caused by viruses and not by coming in contact with cold air. The first person this winter that tells me to put on a coat/scarf/hat to prevent becoming sick is going to get punched* in the face.

Do most old people really not know that illnesses are caused by viruses and bacteria? Do they just say it (you'll catch cold) because their parents did, even though they know it is nonsense?

Maybe the AARP can make some flashcards:

Cold -> VIRUS
Flu ->VIRUS
Pneumonia -> VIRUS OR BACTERIA
Frost Bite -> Low Temperatures
Hypothermia -> Low Temperatures



*of course I mean figuratively, with facts.

This is where you're wrong kiddo.

They tell you this because generally the environment offers a better venue for the transmission of the virus. For example, they tell you to bundle up, so you don't whipe the snot off of your nose, and touch a table and somehow someone else contracts it.

Generally the cool temperatures allow for better transmission of the disease, or a more often circumstances where transmission is likely.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
Maybe someone should tell you that we all carry viruses, and usually they have no effect on us.....unless we weaken ourselves by doing something...........like getting too cold, like kids do by going outside without a coat and playing.

Bingo

 

[element]

Don't forget about bundling up your software to prevent catching a virus. Everytime I've bought bundled software I've never gotten a computer virus, ergo, bundling prevents virii. Not that there's any such word, I just like saying virii.

 

[Gurck]

My grandmother always used to admonish me to wear my jacket and shoes/socks even in summertime. Now that she's gone I wish she was still around telling me to bundle up before I step in to a 90 degree August day though It's a minor thing, really. Do you believe in god? If so you're in no position to be laughing at others' misconceptions

 

[GRIFFIN1]

While you are telling the old people about colds, also tell them to stay off the roads from 7-8, 12-1, and 5-6. I wish Picadilly would lock them in from 5-6 so they wouldn't be on the road when I'm trying to get home.

 

[Argo]

I've gotten sick from being cold...

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: jagec
don't forget

Blind -> NO DRIVING
Senile -> NO DRIVING
Speed limit 60 -> DRIVE 60 (or more)
You're near a farmer's market -> SLOW DOWN

for some reason, I read your first line as:

Bling -> no driving

then got confused.