Cold Weather Exercise Cautions

It’s tough to exercise in the cold weather, and certainly one of the most frustrating things is that you can pull muscles. You can also put extra pressure on the chest. When you’re in the cold, the blood vessels that go to the heart actually can clamp down, and when they clamp down they can have decreased oxygen supply to the heart. With that decrease of oxygen can come chest tightness and situations resolving and leading into a heart attack. The other problem of course is if you don’t warm up properly, and you don’t stretch out, you can also pull hamstrings and other muscles and tendons.

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Do Children in Daycare Develop More Health Problems?

Over the years, there has been a theory that children who attend daycare tend to develop more health problems; things like colds, ear infections, and throat infections.  In the first few years of life, they can have more problems than the children who stay home, and it makes sense because there is an earlier exposure to problems.  The theory also suggests that as the children get older, they have fewer infections and problems than the kids who stayed home and are more likely to be exposed to the various problems.  A new study of 4,000 Dutch children from birth to eight years showed children who started daycare early were twice as likely to experience wheezing in the first year of life than those who didn't go to daycare.  By age five, daycare kids were slightly less likely to wheeze than non-daycare kids.  By eight, the effects evened out and daycare attendants had no association with the wheezing. 

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Infections Occur More Commonly During Winter Due to Close Contact

The principal reason for the increase in the number of infections in winter weather is the fact that people tend to remain indoors in cold weather and, thus, are in very close contact with one another.  Proximity allows the spread of many viruses that cause respiratory infections.  In addition, influenza is even more common in winter because the virus first attacks the Far East in their summer and then spreads westward and reaches the U.S. by winter.  Although it is preferable that one should stay warm, there is little hard evidence to suggest that not wearing a hat or exposure of wet hair to inclement weather increases the risk of infection or, more specifically, pneumonia.  The truth is, the flu and the common cold are both caused by viruses.  People get sick more often in the winter because they're exposed to each other more.

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Can You Catch a Cold from Being in the Cold?

The temperature has dropped and it’s been down there for a while, so the big question is, does temperature change cause you to catch a cold? Most likely your mother told you it can, but medical studies say there is no effect. Basically, colds are caused by viruses, and the spread of viruses, particularly, the rhino virus. There is one theory that cold weather can suppress your immune system and make you more susceptible to problems, but this is under heavy study. In cold months, when the air is very dry to start with, people turn on their heating systems. That dry air can cause allergic symptoms to be made worse.

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The Cold Virus Manipulates Genes

Infections with the common cold virus can cause widespread havoc among one's genes.  That's what researchers say.  They administered either the human rhinovirus or a placebo to healthy volunteers.  Next, they took scrapings from the participants' noses at the 8 hour and 48 hour marks.  Gene analysis on the cell scrapings showed little difference at 8 hours, but after 48 hours more than 6,500 genes showed increased or decreased activity in people who had been infected with the common cold.  

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