Common cold myths

For the past two weeks some of my dragon boat teammates ad I have been heading out on the water in outrigger canoes. It has been pretty chilly air temperatures sitting pretty close to the freezing mark. Understanding the biology of what causes a cold and with a good idea of all the myths out there about the common cold I was perhaps a tad disappointed but not surprised when a teammate indicated that they had caught a cold after being chilled during the paddles. So, I set out to debunk this myth. However, the first article I found was actually a reference to a website about the common cold that was created by two physicians. And, since I’m not one for recreating things that have been done well I thought I would just refer to this well referenced site and specifically their myth busting page.

Needless to say getting a chill does not affect your likelihood of catching a cold.

I will say the myth I was most interested in was not taking cold medication so that your body can do its thing. I struggle with allergies and cold medicine so I can’t take a ton regardless but I was happy to see that this is a myth and cold medicine can help reduce the spread of colds and reduce the chances of secondary infections.

And finally, here is the site https://www.commoncold.org/special.htm