Cold temperatures hit Chiang Mai, hospitals see rash of pneumonia patients

[FolkGuitar]

Gotta love this cooler weather! With the front door and back windows open we have a 'wind tunnel' bringing fresh air circulating throughout the house. Delightful. I even had to put on a T-shirt at 6:30am, but took it off by 8. The cat is sitting on the window ledge, nose sniffing the breeze catching all the new scents. Winter is here!

[Afook]

The blood gets thin in these tropical places, but the cool temperatures yesterday afternoon was a surprise, but welcomed. Saves the air conditioner wattage :-) I'd bought a sleeveless vest just last week to wear in the evenings, just in time, haha....you think cold, go to Chicago in the winter ;-)

[maewang99]

if it's cold then it's not humid so if someone coughs viruses into the air they are less likely to glom onto water molecules and fall to the floor or ground. that's right isn't it? but it's not something to make a big worry about I also believe.

[easybullet3]

Why is it that whenever the temperature changes a bit in thailand, everyone gets sick ? !!

I'm not talking about old people that are weaker and get sick easy.

I'M TALKING ABOUT 20 and 30 year old PEOPLE (mostly its girls).

almost every time the weather changes, they get sick.. (they need medicine, sometimes a intravenous-drip) !!

honestly.. if the people of this country ate their VEGETABLES and more FRUIT... and stop eating CAKE, Sweets, Popcorn, junk, candy, sweetened products, mayonnaise, cream, coke, pepsi, nestle products etc... and binging on over-perscribed medicines, then MAYBE the country wouldnt get sick every time the weather changes!!

old people have an excuse to get sick when the weather changes... but the youth of the country have no excuse!!

they honestly think that drinking a chicken broth (Brands Chicken essense) will actually make them healthy!!! honestly,, its laughable. if you know any people that get sick when the weather changes, then GET TOUGHER on them and TEACH THEM about FRUIT and VEGETABLES.. and to cut back on all the junk.. adn build up their immune system.

Thai people don't eat fruit and vegetables.

Your in cloud cuckoo land I'm afraid.

All the Thais I know when sick with cold and flu eat Khao Tom rice soup.

Maybe your knocking around with the wrong people.

Not at all.

Thai people have small amounts of fruit and vegetables...

they eat far more of the JUNK that I mentioned in the original message.

i am commenting on the fact that they GET SICK so often...

How many foreigners do you know that get sick when the weather changes ?

coz seriously, check a facebook timeline (of a thai person) and look for the traditional "hospital photo" (of them with an intravenous drip in their arm).

no matter what you say: Thai people get sick when the weather changes,.. which is an indicator of their overall health... which is a DIRECT CORRELATION to the food they eat. (look at any shopping mall and see the ice cream shops, cake shops, junk food etc).

[NCC1701A]

It is a complete myth that cold weather causes cold and infections, and it is a sign of rather shoddy "expertise" that these kind of warnings are given. See Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center website (and the vast majority of all reliable scientific evidence.)

"Evidence Against the Health Claim

It is clear that viruses and bacteria, not cold or wet weather, cause infections. Viruses and bacteria are often transmitted from person-to-person by inhaling them in the form of air droplets (from a sneeze or cough) or touching contaminated skin or surfaces and then touching the eyes or nose.

There is no evidence that humans can get a cold or other infection from exposure to cold weather, or from getting chilled or overheated. When scientists placed cold viruses directly into the noses of study participants before either exposing them to cold temperatures or not, they failed to find any connection between cold exposure and susceptibility to infection with common cold viruses. And a review in the December 2002 issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise concluded that there is no scientific support for the concept that exposure to moderately cold temperatures depresses immune function in humans."

- See more at: http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/Holistic-Health/Health-Myths-Center.aspx?ChunkID=156976#sthash.Ob0uKv4g.dpuf

Cold virus replicates better at cooler temperatures

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150105170014.htm

Researchers learn why cooler weather correlates with more cases of the common cold

http://scienceline.org/2015/01/cold-viruses-thrive-in-cold-noses/

Edited October 13, 2015 by NCC1701A

[robertson468]

Yup, had to close the windows in the condo today and get out the cat sweaters to lure the cats out from under the table lamps when it got light enough in the morning that we wanted to turn off the lamps. The kitten (now nearly grown) had never worn a cat sweater and had her doubts, but when she saw the enthusiastic response of the big guy, she decided she'd stop trying wriggle out of it.

Right now Hubby is taking his pre-dinner nap and both cats are under the covers, capturing body his body heat.

It sure is rough on the pets when it gets below 22 deg C!

What about the cats?

[partington]

It is a complete myth that cold weather causes cold and infections, and it is a sign of rather shoddy "expertise" that these kind of warnings are given. See Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center website (and the vast majority of all reliable scientific evidence.)

"Evidence Against the Health Claim

It is clear that viruses and bacteria, not cold or wet weather, cause infections. Viruses and bacteria are often transmitted from person-to-person by inhaling them in the form of air droplets (from a sneeze or cough) or touching contaminated skin or surfaces and then touching the eyes or nose.

There is no evidence that humans can get a cold or other infection from exposure to cold weather, or from getting chilled or overheated. When scientists placed cold viruses directly into the noses of study participants before either exposing them to cold temperatures or not, they failed to find any connection between cold exposure and susceptibility to infection with common cold viruses. And a review in the December 2002 issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise concluded that there is no scientific support for the concept that exposure to moderately cold temperatures depresses immune function in humans."

- See more at: http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/Holistic-Health/Health-Myths-Center.aspx?ChunkID=156976#sthash.Ob0uKv4g.dpuf

Cold virus replicates better at cooler temperatures

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150105170014.htm

Researchers learn why cooler weather correlates with more cases of the common cold

http://scienceline.org/2015/01/cold-viruses-thrive-in-cold-noses/

Thanks for pointing this work out-it's very new (published 2015), so doesn't form part of any evidence that doctors are basing their warnings about cold weather on, and directly contradicts the infection experiments cited in my post where actual human beings were deliberately infected with cold viruses at different temperatures and no difference in infection rate was seen.

However it's very interesting and I agree this work does suggest that for colds (that affect the nose) rather than pneumonia (that affects the lungs, which are not colder than core body temperature) there may be something extra harmful about cold weather!

It is a very artificial entirely lab-based study though, so a lot more proof would be necessary to definitely establish any effect on real world disease.

It was done in human nose cells grown in dishes at different temperatures, so it is quite artificial, and measures speed of virus replication in a dish, not how many people get the disease.

“I found the work to be fascinating and convincing,” said Dr. James E. Gern, a pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. But he cautioned that rhinoviruses infecting cells in a dish may not behave as they would in, say, a wheezing subway commuter.

“A main problem is that none of the experiments are done in living animals,” said Vincent Racaniello, a virologist at Columbia University who was not involved in the study.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/health/unraveling-the-key-to-a-cold-viruss-effectiveness.html?_r=0

[pgrahmm]

It is a complete myth that cold weather causes cold and infections, and it is a sign of rather shoddy "expertise" that these kind of warnings are given. See Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center website (and the vast majority of all reliable scientific evidence.)

"Evidence Against the Health Claim

It is clear that viruses and bacteria, not cold or wet weather, cause infections. Viruses and bacteria are often transmitted from person-to-person by inhaling them in the form of air droplets (from a sneeze or cough) or touching contaminated skin or surfaces and then touching the eyes or nose.

There is no evidence that humans can get a cold or other infection from exposure to cold weather, or from getting chilled or overheated. When scientists placed cold viruses directly into the noses of study participants before either exposing them to cold temperatures or not, they failed to find any connection between cold exposure and susceptibility to infection with common cold viruses. And a review in the December 2002 issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise concluded that there is no scientific support for the concept that exposure to moderately cold temperatures depresses immune function in humans."

- See more at: http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/Holistic-Health/Health-Myths-Center.aspx?ChunkID=156976#sthash.Ob0uKv4g.dpuf

True - but the hill people as well as many villages don't have the "nice" dwellings that we do....Lot's of spores, mold, etc. Floating around.....I'm laying in the living room happily in shorts and tee shirt....My wife has grabbed a king sized blanket and has it doubled up and is wrapped up like a cacoon watching some Thai soap in TV.....

Those of us that grew up with seasons have the advantage through experience....Especially if we had the choice to live and play in snowy winters if we wanted (as opposed to the east coast US).....

Our cats are outside in their kitty condo - usually sleep scattered but the last couple of days the three are sleeping curled up in a basket that usually sleeps one......So they feel it too.....Good thing we don't have a heater - my wife already uses a fan sometimes and mosquito coils for their comfort.....

[dhream]

Cold (they have NO IDEA what that means here) weather does not cause colds and flu, what a load of . Mild exposure will lower your resistance to bugs, and that's where the connection is made between being cold and/or wet, and then getting sick. (Seems that even this has been debunked, I've just read an earlier post, so I'll retract it, rather than 'delete' it to 'save face' whatever that means!

However, human minds are complex and potent. The placebo effect (and even talking about getting sick within a group) can actually bring on a genuine lergy, this is still a Scientific mystery as to why, and it's most extreme examples can be seen in primitive cultures where 'bone pointing' leads to death in otherwise robust humans.

I tend to believe it's 'all in the mind' as the science claims, and thus I seem to avoid the placebo effect, there's enough vile shit going around without doing a mental number on yourself.

Your best defense against most of these bugs is frequent hand washing, and don't touch your face with less than pristine hands. Hand to face bacteria transmission is far and away the biggest risk.

Edited October 22, 2015 by dhream