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FACT VS. FICTION


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“Bundle Up! You’ll Catch a Cold!”


Who hasn’t been scolded by a parent or grandparent for leaving a jacket unzipped, not wearing a hat, leaving the house with wet hair or failing to tuck in a scarf — with the admonition that you’re inviting illness by doing so? Or perhaps you’ve been the one to deliver that warning. “My grandmother used to tell me the same things that most people’s grandmothers tell them: ‘Make sure your head is cov- ered!’ ” says Randy Bergen, MD, a pediatrician and clinical lead of the flu vaccine program for Kaiser Permanente in northern California. “But there’s no evidence that go- ing outside without a hat can cause the constellation of symptoms associated with the common cold.”


Symptoms & Causes Those symptoms include congestion, cough and sometimes fever and achiness, says Dr. Bergen. “It’s caused by a virus that infects the respiratory tract — the nose, the throat, sinuses and some- times the chest.” There are a number of viruses that can do


this, he says, including the rhinovirus and coro- navirus, two of the most common. “The list of viruses that can cause a cold seems to grow every year,” he adds. “It’s an infection that tends to be more common during the winter, when people are close together indoors. It’s a relatively contagious infection, and, there- fore, few people manage to go through an entire winter without catching a cold.”


Influenza


Another common mistake, says Dr. Bergen, is confusing a cold with the flu. “There is a specific wintertime virus called influenza,” he says. “Of all the viruses, it is in general the most severe. It


sweeps through communities each and every winter season. It is a distinct virus, for which we have a vac- cine, and we encourage people to get vaccinated every year.”


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