2397 Stuffy Knows

Back in the day, whenever one was ill they utilized the folk remedies handed down from grandmas and mothers.  Eat chicken soup.  Feed a cold, starve a fever.  Don't get your feet wet.  And my favorite: Cover up, you'll catch a cold.

Our generation was too smart for that nonsense.  What do you mean, cover up you'll catch a cold?  Colds came from rhinoviri not weather.  You could get as cold as you wanted.  That didn't mean you would get a cold from it.

Wash your hands, don't touch your moist places and cough into your elbow pit were the new mantras.  And don't forget to use copious amounts of hand sanitizer. 

Well, it turns out mother was right.  Not only has using copious amounts of hand sanitizer helped create antibiotic-resistant superbugs, people still get colds with astonishing regularity come winter time.

Scientists have finally figured out why mother was right.  That common cold virus we talked about, the rhinovirus, is always with us.  About one in five people carries it in his or her nasal cavity.  Which is no problem because most of the time the body's natural immune system keeps the virus checked.

However, researchers at Yale University found that when the temperature inside the nasal cavity drops by five degrees, the immune system is weakened.  So those germs can start replicating.  That means stay out of the cold.  And wear some sort of nose muff when you do go out. 

When word gets out, I'm guessing ski masks and those football player style black balaclavas will become high fashion.  Look like a terrorist and prevent the common cold. 

Funny that this nasal discovery came from snobby Yale University.  Because that's the very place where we think people are always looking down their noses. 

America, ya gotta love it.