One day, my eldest daughter came home from school and asked me, "Dad, which one runs faster, cold or heat?" I was confused and didn't know what the question really meant. She said with a mischievous expression, "Isn't the English word for a cold called catch cold? But we never say catch hot, right? This means that cold runs slower than heat." The West uses catch cold to refer to a cold, just like we in the East say suffer from cold. This old saying implies that both the East and the West believe that cold. It is the result of a sudden cold snap or insufficient protection from the cold. But this is a big mistake that has no basis and cannot withstand scientific scrutiny.
Cold is an infectious disease, which can be caused by about 200 kinds of viruses that are not very toxic. These viruses mainly reproduce in the epithelial cells of the nasal cavity or nasopharynx, but they are not very destructive and will not spread to other parts of the body. Runny nose, sneezing, headache, nasal congestion or fever are mostly due to the body's defense response. Usually these symptoms disappear completely within a week, which shows that the cold virus is a very measured pathogen. This is after a long period of struggle and mutual adaptation, the virus has achieved a state of peaceful coexistence with humans. Unless it is an elderly person or a patient with a serious chronic disease, we have never heard of a case of death from a cold. The cause of death of the elderly and chronic patients from a cold is usually the comorbidities caused by the cold, not the cold itself. As mentioned above, there are many cold viruses, and the largest group is rhinovirus. About 40% of colds are caused by rhinovirus. Foot-and-mouth disease virus is actually a rhinovirus, but it is a rhinovirus of two-hoofed animals. Rhinoviruses have almost reached a state of not seriously invading each other in the human body, but foot-and-mouth disease is toxic to kill sheep, cattle, etc.
Many people are already skeptical when they hear that catching a cold has nothing to do with being cold, and they may even be more confused when they hear about how colds are transmitted. However, if the basic concept of catching a cold is not corrected, cold prevention cannot be implemented, and the infection rate may not be reduced.
The hand that spreads colds
Adults have sex 2 to 4 times a year on average, and children have sex 6 to 8 times a year.cold. Colds are more common in cold seasons, and most people mistakenly believe that colds are caused by exposure to cold. However, a thorough scientific investigation has shown that exposure to cold has long been ruled out as a cause of colds. For example, Andrews in the UK once divided volunteers for an experiment 50 years ago into a group that was dressed warmly and comfortably, and another group that was wrapped in wet towels and stood in the air duct for 30 minutes, then allowed to put on clothes but not allowed to wear shoes, and had their feet wrapped in wet cold towels for an hour or so. Both groups were then inoculated with live cold viruses. The result was that although the body temperature of the "cold" group did drop, the incidence of colds was not higher than that of the other group that remained warm and comfortable. People who are locked in a refrigerated truck and have their body temperature lowered are as healthy as those who are not refrigerated unless they are inoculated with viruses.
Most people think that using shared chopsticks, kissing, or being close to a cold patient, or inhaling respiratory secretions from a cold patient's sneeze are ways to catch a cold, but this is not true. The most common cold virus is in the nasal secretions. When you wipe these secretions with your hands and then touch things or other parts of the body, the virus spreads and then spreads to healthy people. Hands are the culprit! Grandparents holding their grandchildren with colds must remember to wash their hands! If you shake hands and greet people frequently, you should also wash your hands more often to prevent the virus that others have passed on to you from being passed on to you.Respiratory tractThe more opportunities people have to interact with each other, the more often they should wash their hands!
But there is an important question that has not been answered: All the scientific data above seem to make sense, but colds are more common in cold seasons. Is it true that "cold" has nothing to do with colds? The answer to this question is simple: people tend to stay indoors in cold weather, which increases the chances of frequent contact in confined spaces and infection with viruses.