Myths About Illnesses and Injuries and How We Treat Them
Many people believe that going out in the cold makes you more likely to get ill – including your mother.
One scientific paper reviewed all of the experiments where scientists tested whether we are any more likely to get ill when we are cold. In one of these studies, they actually put the virus that causes the common cold into people’s noses and then chilled some of these people. Those who were chilled were no more likely to be infected with a cold than those who were not chilled. Another study looked at the relationship between chilling your feet and experiencing cold symptoms. The people who had their feet chilled were more likely to report cold symptoms afterwards. But does this mean that the cold feet caused the cold symptoms? No. It is very possible that these people just reported these symptoms because their feet felt so cold. There is no clear cause and effect.
There are other reasons why people may associate illness with cold weather. Some experts theorize that cold weather makes people more likely to stay indoors together, thus spreading colds and other viruses. There is no hard science to back that up, but we do know that colds are passed through close contact between people.