Some column in the Trib wrote:
Now millions of mothers' voices reverberating against the resistant eardrums of their children are vindicated. Scientists have discovered that, yes, you can, in fact, catch a cold from being chilled! Researchers at Cardiff University's Common Cold Centre in England asked 90 healthy people to stick their bare feet in a bowl of freezing water for 20 minutes--a mother's nightmare. The luckier 90 people in the control group got to keep their feet toasty in shoes and socks.
Guess what happened? (Mothers can skip this part. They already know.) After five days, one measure showed 29 percent of the people whose feet had been chilled had sore throats and runny noses compared with only 9 percent with warm, dry feet, as reported in Family Practice. Science has proven what mothers have been saying all along.
Researchers think chilling the feet reduces your immune defense and makes you vulnerable to cold viruses that may be lolling around in your system. They theorize that chilling the body causes blood vessels in your nose to constrict, which reduces the supply of white cells that fight infection. Thus the virus gets the upper hand. In other words, put on some socks, darling!
Guess what happened? (Mothers can skip this part. They already know.) After five days, one measure showed 29 percent of the people whose feet had been chilled had sore throats and runny noses compared with only 9 percent with warm, dry feet, as reported in Family Practice. Science has proven what mothers have been saying all along.
Researchers think chilling the feet reduces your immune defense and makes you vulnerable to cold viruses that may be lolling around in your system. They theorize that chilling the body causes blood vessels in your nose to constrict, which reduces the supply of white cells that fight infection. Thus the virus gets the upper hand. In other words, put on some socks, darling!
