Freezing winters get up your nose ... and cut immunity
THE cold days of December bring about a domino effect where, one by one, people take to their sick beds. According to the NHS, seasonal respiratory viruses such as flu are piling on the pressure (not to mention Covid). Last week alone, there was a 14.3 per cent uptick in flu cases in England. Among 15- to 44-year-olds that figure increased to 24.3 per cent.
A study published this week in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology offered an interesting biological and molecular explanation for why our immune systems falter as the temperature drops. It said it only takes a 5C drop in temperature inside our nose to kill off around 50 per cent of the useful bacteria that fight viruses. Considering the nose is one of the primary points by which viruses enter the body, this leaves us susceptible.
In time past, doctors believed the very opposite. The prevailing idea back in the 18th century was that sub-zero temperatures were ideal for boosting immune systems. Frosts were deemed particularly welcome as they sealed in the noxious marsh gas, which was linked to all manner of ailments.
To physicians of the time, the human body was regarded in much the same way we understand dormancy in trees today: a good cold winter was just the thing to kill off any lingering disease. Indeed, insufficiently cold weather was believed to bring about bouts of fever, shivering fits, hysteria and madness.
Bogus as this science has turned out to be, I can appreciate where the roots of it lie. For even if bitterly cold weather is now demonstrably bad for our health, it still, somehow, feels very different.
Walking out of the house swaddled in layers and deeply breathing in the icy air of a cold sunrise, has been magnificently life-affirming over recent days. There is little sign of change in the weather on the horizon and I am resolved to enjoy this deep freeze while it lasts. Or at least until it strikes me down.