Everyone has received that classic maternal alert that says: take a jacket, because it will get cold. Likewise, everyone has ignored the warning at least once and regretted it later, hopefully not getting a cold as a bonus for the situation.
It is not new, not even for specialists, that the drop in temperatures makes us more susceptible to catching the flu or a cold . The fact is that change itself does not cause disease, but the conditions it creates make contagion much easier.
Infected environment
Everything is possible until proven otherwise, right? Therefore, a meta-analysis was carried out in which researchers came to the conclusion that simply being exposed to a cold environment does not make someone more susceptible to catching a cold. The big problem lies in the low air humidity, which is almost always associated with lower temperatures.
In an interview with The Atlantic
, pulmonologist Ray Casciari said that at these times “the eyes and the mucous membranes of the nose dry up, and your lungs also feel the difference and therefore you stay much more susceptible to bacteria and viruses”. The strong influence of dry air was confirmed by Jeffrey Shaman and his team, from Columbia University, who carried out a study in 2010.
In their work, they compared meteorological and health, covering a period of 30 years, concluding that flu outbreaks were almost always accompanied by considerable drops in air humidity. The researchers themselves justify the fact, explaining that in an environment with higher air humidity, the particles expelled by a sick person are large, depositing more quickly on surfaces. Dry air causes these particles to break down into smaller pieces, which can remain suspended in the air for weeks, creating a highly contagious environment.
Preventive measures
An effective way to try to avoid creating such favorable conditions would be through the use of humidifiers. The solution was analyzed in a study carried out in 2013, which stated that there was a 30% reduction in the risk of contamination in an environment with controlled humidity. On the other hand, excess moisture can also be harmful, because in these cases mold develops more intensely.
In general, infected people begin to show symptoms of the disease only the next day to contagion, but in this period they are already potential transmitters, a condition that lasts approximately 1 week. However, this time may increase if the infected person is a child or a person with lower than normal immunity.
Small attitudes, such as washing the hands hands frequently and avoid scratching the eyes and mouth, combined with vaccination, are still the best ways to prevent that annoying flu. Knowing that low humidity has a lot of influence on contagion probably won’t get you through an entire winter unharmed, but it can help you take more effective measures in higher risk situations.
