Everyone knows to put a jacket on otherwise your going to get sick. “You’ll catch a cold if you don’t bundle up” my mom always told me. Now that the weather is getting cold I was wondering if that has any truth to it. Turns out during the winter and colder months there is a higher percentage of people who are sick (15-20%) (Mental Floss). Most typically with the common cold or the flu. But, that is just a correlation. Any doctor will tell you that people do not get sick because of the temperature of their bodies, people get sick because of viruses, bacteria or germs. Although scientist are not sure exactly why sickness spikes during these cold winter months they have theories that cold work individually or a combination.
Theory #1: One theory is in the colder months people stay indoors more often. Indoors means the air is being recycled between more people than usual. A lot of people are in schools or work and are in close contact with other people. This makes the transmission of viruses and bacteria from person to person much easier. Therefore making more people sick.
Theory #2: Another idea is that in the hot summer weather, viruses and bacteria have a harder time staying alive on surfaces like counter tops and door nobs. The colder temperature is more sustainable to these viruses which allows them to live longer and infect more people during the cold winter months.
The only diseases cold temperature can single handily cause is Hypothermia or Frost Bite. Hypothermia is when the body looses too much heat and warmth, and Frost Bite is when one region of the body loses too much heat. But being cold, will not affect whether or not you will suffer from the common cold or the flu. Hypothermia is when the body temperature drops below the temperature required for bodily functions. Symptoms of mild cases of Hypothermia are slight confusion and shivering. But if it becomes severe the persons heart could stop which would kill them. Frost Bite happens when a localize body region become too cold for proper blood flow. This most commonly happens in toes and fingers. There are different stages of Frost Bite but it can range from permanent nerve and tissue damage to temporary numbness. Both diseases are serious conditions.
There are risks to being cold and not wearing proper cold weather attire but these risks do not include catching a cold or the flu. In fact, the risks are much worse.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30741/does-being-cold-make-you-more-susceptible-getting-cold
http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/does-cold-weather-make-you-sick#2
Unfortunately my time at Penn State thus far has led me to being incredibly sick about four times already. Currently I have bronchitis as does my roommate and a couple of my friends. Prior to reading this I understood that the weather is not what causes our sicknesses but the bacteria and germs that surround us in our everyday lives are what to blame. There is however a higher risk of getting sick during the winter time which made me curious and confused. After reading this blog post however I have a better understanding for why more sicknesses occur during this time of year because of the particular theories you have mentioned. Here is a link to an article that can help provide us with ways to avoid getting sick during this time of year, http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/does-cold-weather-make-you-sick
I really enjoyed the topic of your post, as getting sick during the winter at Penn State is as likely as a Freshman getting lost on campus during Syllabus week–it’s going to happen. It comes at no surprise that it has been dubbed “The Penn State Plague”. So it definitely peaks my interest when you describe possible ways people get sick. But, these two theories you posted don’t seem to have any experiments to support them. They appear to have some truth, but the the best way to deduce this would be to conduct a trial where people are constantly exposed to the environments in these two theories. Even better would be to conduct a double blind placebo, as it would give the best unbiased results. Then we all could see what really gets us sick, and we can take measures to avoid “The Penn State Plague”.