The Common Cold

Health In Your Daily Living by Rathbone, Bacon, and Keene is actually one of the more recent books I have to reference, as it was published in 1948. However, some of its claims on this week's topic, For The Common Cold (dun dun duuuuuuun) are not true compared to more recent science.  So lets get into it shall we?!

For starters, I should probably mention that I have a cold, big surprise! And this isn't just a little stuffy nose cold. This is a full-on case of coryza (the medical name for the common cold). My brain and head feel like they're full of Thanksgiving stuffing, my nose is stuffy and runny, I can feel the mucus from my nose actually dripping down into my throat, which already feels sore, and I have this icky smoker-esque cough. Yup. I got a cold.

How did I get this cold? How can I make it better? Well, those are the types of questions I hope to answer in this post.

The two articles that I will draw scientific information from are The Common Cold by Heikkinen and Jarvinen published in the The Lancet (2003). The other article is Diagnosis and treatment of the common cold in pediatric patients by Robohm and Ruff published in The Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (2012).

The common cold does not actually have specific cause, it is usually a viral infection that is limited to the upper respiratory tract. More than 100 different kinds of rhinoviruses have been identified, and their prevalence varies based on geographical areas and passing of time. Rathbone, Bacon and Keene (RBK) touch on this a little bit, they call the illness a "cold infection, or virus" and say that it usually starts in the nose or throat (or the eye, which may be why I tend to get pink-eye when I have a cold, but don't worry, I don't have it this time). This claim is supported up by the literature, which says colds are typically viral infections of the nasal mucosa, which causes nasal obstruction and rhinorrhoea, more commonly known as a runny nose.

But how do we contract the cold in the first place? Well my dear readers, I will now debunk the greatest myth in common cold science.  Heikkinen and Jarvinen state that: "the available evidence, albeit scarce, does not lend support to the popular belief that colds are associated with chilling or exposure to a cold environment." So no, if you are cold, you will not get a cold. This misconception may be due to the fact, as stated in RBK and the recent scientific literature that the most common times for contracting colds are in the fall and winter months. This, however, could be due to many other reasons, such as being inside and in close quarters with others, weather permitting an extended life of the virus, being more stressed or fatigued in the winter, etc...

Once the virus is contracted, incubation (when the virus multiplies and remains in your body without expressing overt symptoms), according to RBK, can last awhile without the person knowing that he or she is infected. Once their body gets "run down or chilled" the virus begins to cause symptoms.  We know that when you are "chilled" you are not more likely to get the cold, however, being "run down" or tired is a possibility.  When you are tired, your body's strength and therefore immune response are weakened, so this may aid the virus in replicating in your body. However, it may also just be a factor of already having the virus and be a symptom during the incubation period, since colds do cause physical fatigue.

We do now know that the incubation period of the cold varies greatly depending on the type of virus; some symptoms occur 10-12 hours after infection and others take a bit longer. However, in talking about the stages of the cold, RBK were more-or-less correct that the cold lasts about 7-10 days; tiredness and a sore throat permeate for the first few days; the second stage, lasting 2-3 days is the peak of the infection; and the third stage is where the nose is severely plugged; in the final stage, the cold wears itself out and maybe only a lingering cough is still present.

And now onto treatments for the common cold. The articles I read and RBK vary greatly in their suggestions for how to treat the common cold. Where RBK suggest taking "a warm bath and go[ing] to bed...staying in bed...eat[ing] lightly..." The literature suggests over the counter cold and cough remedies that can temporarily relieve symptoms (but not in children under 4), honey, saline, echinacea, vitamin C, and zinc.  The efficacy of these treatments are somewhat debated, but since they are mostly harmless, the literature presents them as alternative treatments or symptom relievers for the common cold. They also mention that antibiotics will not help since the cold is typically a viral, not bacterial, infection (and aren't we given too many antibiotics these days anyway?)

It is a good idea, as RBK suggest, to keep yourself in general good health to prevent a cold and exercise regularly, since physical health improves immunity. Also, most of their suggestions, like resting and taking a warm bath are generally good ideas when you are sick, however eating lightly is not, since your body's immune system is fighting a virus and you need all the energy you can to help it fight the cold. Don't overeat when you have a cold (which is hard since a loss of appetite generally happens), but make sure to eat when you are hungry and drink lots of fluids!

So for now, my personal remedy is Sudafed in the day time (the cold drug that people make speed out of of), Benadryl at night (which knocks me out like a baby...and I only take half the dose), Robutussin (for the icky cough), tea in the morning, resting more than usual, homemade chicken matzo ball soup (also known as Jewish penicillin) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and writing this blog to learn more about what I can do to be a healthier person.