Cause and cure for the common cold

[661-Pete]

BTW, I'm not getting at the Guardian

Oh yes you are! Admit it!

I haven't yet read the whole article (it's long)

Well, unlike you, I have - even though this isn't a subject I have any expertise in. I found it quite interesting. But you're probably thinking mainly of dear Theresa's discomfiture. I'm not.

Regarding your postulate about a common cold being 'invigorating' or whatever word you used ..... try taking that argument to someone who suffers from asthma.

[horizon]

Just thought I'd update with the Guardian's postion for 2017/18. Although it relates to flu, this winter it looks like "family get-togethers" will be the major cause of the spread of infection. Probably best to get everyone out on their bikes.

[mercalia]

Just thought I'd update with the Guardian's postion for 2017/18. Although it relates to flu, this winter it looks like "family get-togethers" will be the major cause of the spread of infection. Probably best to get everyone out on their bikes.

I was about to add -AVOID AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE

[horizon]

I do now feel a certain sense of responsibilty to update this thread every year on the latest nonsense being put out by the health profession on the matter of colds and flu. Rather like Christmas, the articles in response to winter illnesses are now a well established tradition.

At the start of this thread, I tried to explain that colds were little to do with the passing of "germs" between people but rather the body's (usually very successful) attempt to adapt to changing environmental conditions, from warm to cold (the clue is in the name). Although the cold virus is undoubtedly present (and doing its good work), it is resident in the body even if passing to another person does occur. But you do need to have need of it and researchers have found, so far, that it isn't possible to create a cold in a volunteer by proximity.

Anyway, six years later, flu seems to have eclipsed mere colds (I wonder why!) but in this article from the Guardian all forms of winter malaise seem to be conflated. Anyway, here it is and FYI, this year's barmy idea is food (not bad in itself but not really relevant). Even the author herself depairs of last year's whacky hand sanitiser advice and this year's other recommendation - avoid other people! Enjoy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... winter-flu

[661-Pete]

I think that article is about two separate issues: avoiding the common cold, and "healthy eating". I don't see the connection, but clearly the author does.

I see I already posted my 2p's worth about a year and a half ago, so I won't add to it. Except to say, every year at about this time I get pestered, by my GP's surgery, to take the flu-jab (being over 65 I'm entitled to a free one). I always refuse. Am I right to do so? To me it's just another medication (and I take enough of those already!) of uncertain efficacy (how many different strains of flu are there - and how many vaccines?). I haven't had a 'proper' flu for years anyway. The doctor uses scare tactics ("people die from flu"): quite true - but there again - he's got boxes to tick no doubt....

But the common cold! Yes I do get those - and I call it a cold, not "man-flu" - but it's still annoying. Especially if I get a persistent hacking cough which goes on for weeks after (hint: if you use Salbutamol, that helps to ease things a bit). So I'm still waiting for the vaccine against the common cold...

How much longer?

[horizon]

So I'm still waiting for the vaccine against the common cold...

How much longer?

Probably forever IMV as, according to my own beliefs, the body needs the common cold to ensure its adaption to changing conditions. Like the flu virus, it might exhibit enough crafty variations (thank goodness!) to elude a vaccine. However, you can already dilute effects of a cold by taking various medications. I would doubt the wisdom of doing that and would naturally connect the interference with the cold as a precursor to flu.

[661-Pete]

So I'm still waiting for the vaccine against the common cold...

How much longer?

Probably forever IMV as, according to my own beliefs, the body needs the common cold to ensure its adaption to changing conditions. Like the flu virus, it might exhibit enough crafty variations (thank goodness!) to elude a vaccine. However, you can already dilute effects of a cold by taking various medications. I would doubt the wisdom of doing that and would naturally connect the interference with the cold as a precursor to flu.

Mine was a rhetorical question of course.

I will often reach for the LemSip if I get the symptoms. That's pretty harmless stuff (provided you don't O/D of course!). I don't generally take anything else apart from the ventolin, as I explained earlier.

However I don't agree that excessive palliative medicine can trigger a flu. It might delay recognition of the symptoms though - fever especially.

[Vorpal]

I will often reach for the LemSip if I get the symptoms. That's pretty harmless stuff (provided you don't O/D of course!). I don't generally take anything else apart from the ventolin, as I explained earlier.

However I don't agree that excessive palliative medicine can trigger a flu. It might delay recognition of the symptoms though - fever especially.

There is some evidence that such medicine can delay recovery or make it worse, especially if it reduces fever.

https://www.businessinsider.com/cold-me ... &IR=T&IR=T

IMO, the only reason to take such medicines is to make myself functional for a short period of time to deal with something important (e.g. going to a funeral). Otherwise, I stay home and recover, making sure I get plenty of fluids.

If I stay home, I can usually recover form a cold in a couple of days. If I take lemsip and go to work, it takes me a week.

I don't usually get colds, though. Every time I've had one in the last few years, It's been after a period where I didn't have enough sleep for a few nights.

[uwidavid]

I saw a publication some time ago (which I cannot find) which suggested that the viruses survive longer if the dew point is low. It is difficult to catch a cold as the transmission rate is close to 1 that is one person with a cold will on average infect one other person.
So if the transmission rate falls below 1 the cold will die out and if it is much greater than one it will spread.
In the winter the dew point is low so the transmission rate increases.
I live in the tropics where the dew point rarely drops below 20°C and I never get a cold.

[horizon]

I saw a publication some time ago (which I cannot find) which suggested that the viruses survive longer if the dew point is low. It is difficult to catch a cold as the transmission rate is close to 1 that is one person with a cold will on average infect one other person.
So if the transmission rate falls below 1 the cold will die out and if it is much greater than one it will spread.
In the winter the dew point is low so the transmission rate increases.
I live in the tropics where the dew point rarely drops below 20°C and I never get a cold.

Possibly because you don't need one. Come back to the UK and you might. Very interesting post though. It seems the virus hangs around when we need it - in the winter. This virus appears to be not only benign but helpful. Quite incredible when you think about it. Hmmm.

[Patrickpioneer]

there is another theory that germs etc come from space, in fact the common cold and flu virus can withstand cold, heat and huge amounts of radiation that is not found on earth but common in space. In the northern hemisphere we get infected due to the cold air or rain dragging down the germs in our winter, southern hemisphere they get it during our summer and people on the equator get infected at anytime of the year.
Its called Panspermia

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have speculated that several outbreaks of illnesses on Earth are of extraterrestrial origins, including the 1918 flu pandemic, and certain outbreaks of polio and mad cow disease. For the 1918 flu pandemic they hypothesized that cometary dust brought the virus to Earth simultaneously at multiple locations—a view almost universally dismissed by experts on this pandemic. Hoyle also speculated that HIV came from outer space.[123] After Hoyle's death, The Lancet published a letter to the editor from Wickramasinghe and two of his colleagues,[124] in which they hypothesized that the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) could be extraterrestrial in origin and not originated from chickens. The Lancet subsequently published three responses to this letter, showing that the hypothesis was not evidence-based, and casting doubts on the quality of the experiments referenced by Wickramasinghe in his letter.[125][126][127] A 2008 encyclopedia notes that "Like other claims linking terrestrial disease to extraterrestrial pathogens, this proposal was rejected by the greater research community."[123]

In April 2016, Jiangwen Qu of the Department of Infectious Disease Control in China presented a statistical study suggesting that "extremes of sunspot activity to within plus or minus 1  year may precipitate influenza pandemics." He discussed possible mechanisms of epidemic initiation and early spread, including speculation on primary causation by externally derived viral variants from space via cometary dust.[128]

[horizon]

I do try and keep up with the latest fruitless atempts to "cure" the common cold. Mostly they come in around winter time in the Guardian but this year the BBC have produced a useful video showing why medical science hasn't yet found a cure:

https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/why-we ... d/p07mn4wv

The good news IMV is that the body can carry on using the cold as a cure as nature intended rather than being stopped in its tracks.