An explanation of what the common cold is and advice on how to prevent it and cope with it.
Your eyes water, your nose tickles and twitches, your throat itches, and you
gasp—AAAAAAHHH CHOOOO! A moment of relief, and it begins again.
T’is not the season to be sneezin’ therefore it’s that bane of humanity, the
common cold. For the next 4-10 days you will suffer. Or maybe not? Can the
common cold be stopped? Prevented? Cured? Well they’re working on it. In the
meantime, what can be done?
Things You Never Wanted to Know but Can Learn Anyway
The common cold is usually caused by a picornavirus, either rhinovirus or
enterovirus. These meanies attach themselves to cells in your nose and throat
via a protein coat. Then they shed the coat as their genetic material enters
your cell and takes over. The cell stops listening to its own nucleic-acid
encoded instructions and starts taking orders from the viral code. Result—your
cell becomes a virus production factory.
When the cell bursts, swarms of new viruses are released which attach to
other cells, and the cycle repeats. As more cells fall to the invaders, you
begin to feel tired, your nose runs, you sneeze to try to expel the enemy. You
may run a low fever and have headaches and a sore throat, in other words—a cold.
You can get multiple colds in your lifetime because there are multiple types
of cold viruses. Rhinovirus which causes about 50% of all colds has over 100
serotypes, therefore the possibility of over 100 rhinoviral colds.
So How Do You Know if It’s a Cold?
After all it could be flu or a sinus infection or even allergies. The keys
are fever, mucus, and duration. In adults colds and allergies have either a low
fever (<100 F) or no fever, and a high fever (>100) for a sinus infection
and influenza. Nasal discharge for allergies is clear, while for colds it can be
that thick gooey yellow junk. Sinusitis will definitely have thick yellow or
green mucus. The nasty colored mucus from a cold will last only a couple of
days, whereas a bacterial infection like sinusitis could last over a week.
An antihistamine should give immediate relief if allergies are the culprit.
If they aren’t, it won’t hurt.
Isn’t it absolutely amazing that we all survived childhood? Especially
considering that we are constantly bombarded by viruses and bacteria of all
kinds yet we remain relatively disease free. Why? Because we have a fantastic
strategic defense arsenal, our immune system, and that topic leads us to the
next.
Prevention
Stay healthy and avoid stress. Really. There is a ton of research out
there showing that adults who keep healthy and happy have fewer colds.
Interestingly the same is not true for children. Children, the data show, are
going to get a lot of colds and all that can be done for them is to reduce the
cold's severity and duration. So don’t panic when the little tyke sneezes and
gets a fever of 102. Those symptoms are to be expected with childhood colds.
Give him plenty to drink and call the pediatrician.
Avoid antibiotics. Antibiotics kill or stop the growth of bacteria,
NOT viruses. If you take antibiotics for a cold you will not get better but you
will kill off helpful bacteria in residence, such as the vitamin-making bacteria
in your intestines. Bottom line—you will be sicker and the potential of
producing antibiotic resistant bacteria increases. There are some promising
antivirals being tested right now, but they appear to be good at shortening the
length of the cold or reducing its severity, not preventing it alltogether.
One more thing- 95% of all sore throats are caused by viruses.
Stop smoking. Yes, smokers are more prone to colds, like almost
everything else it seems, and second hand smoke increases the number of colds in
children exposed to it. I know it’s hard, where I come from tobacco is
considered a green leafy vegetable. Think of smoking plus cold as sandpaper plus
sunburn. Does that help?
What about vaccines? These too are on the horizon, the problem is
that many different types of viruses cause colds and cold viruses have many
serotypes (remember the 100+ rhinoviruses). So making a vaccine that prevents
all colds is going to be tough, and it will probably have to be a mix.
Scientists are looking for good vaccine targets from several different cold
viruses and trying to find similarities between cold viruses. That protein coat
mentioned above is showing potential.
Some debatable preventive measures. The data for the following
measures vary between studies. For example, echinacea, a herb believed to
stimulate the immune system, has been shown to prevent or treat colds
effectively in several studies, while other research has seen no effect. The
variation could be due to lack of a standard dose, a difference between
products, or the species of echinacea. Commonly used echinacea include E.
purpurea, E. pallida, and E. augustifolia and they are administered in tablets,
teas, juices, extracts and tinctures.
Other possible preventatives are vitamin C, red ginseng and nasal irrigation
(washing out the nasal passages with warm saline or using saline nasal sprays).
There are many other less reliable measures for preventing colds. A couple of
these measures are zinc and vitamin E, both of which have been shown in
countless tests to have no effect on cold prevention.
Treatment
If it feels good do it! Unless of course it is illegal or immoral (who cares
about fattening). It has been shown that chicken soup actually helps reduce cold
symptoms. And if you feel better drinking a quart of OJ every day, by all means
do it. It will make you urinate more often and it’s high in calories… oops! No
one cares about fattening. Also give red ginseng, echinacea and/or saline a try.
Something that I have found very helpful is to sniff essential oils such as
eucalyptus, camphor, or menthol. And please use soft tissues on that sore nose!
Oh and by the way, Bless you!
Reference List
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 2005, vol.66, pp. 612-621
Clinical Infectious Diseases 2005, vol. 40, pp. 811-812
Pediatric Annals 2005, vol. 34, pp. 53-57
Medicinal Research Reviews 2004, vol. 24, pp. 449-474