Listen to your mom: Keep your feet warm and dry in winter!

The BBC reports:

Mothers 'were right' over colds If your mother always warned you to wrap up warm to avoid catching a cold, it seems she may have had a point. Scientists say they have the first proof that there really is a link between getting cold and catching one.

Staff at the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff took 180 volunteers and asked half of them to keep their bare feet in icy water for 20 minutes. They found 29% developed a cold within five days, compared with only 9% in the control group not exposed to a chill.

Professor Ronald Eccles, director of the centre, said the study had shown, for the first time, a scientific link between chilling and viral infection - something previously dismissed by other studies.

"When colds are circulating in the community, many people are mildly infected but show no symptoms," Prof Eccles said. "If they become chilled, this causes a pronounced constriction of the blood vessels in the nose and shuts off the warm blood that supplies the white cells that fight infection. The reduced defences in the nose allow the virus to get stronger and common cold symptoms develop.

"Although the chilled subject believes they have 'caught a cold' what has, in fact, happened is that the dormant infection has taken hold."

By the way, with all the fear of bird flu these days, isn't it time for a public campaign to get people to wash their hands, use alcohol gel sanitizers, and refrain from rubbing your eyes with your hands?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer