Why might someone catch a cold after being exposed to cold things?

December 9, 2021 9:36 AM

My parents consistently catch colds when they either eat ice cream/drink ice cold water or bathe with cold water. They insist the cold exposure is what causes colds. I tell them it's a virus, but they say the correlation is too perfect for the cold to not be a factor. What is the biology behind this?

If it matters, they live in a tropical country, which means there's probably a larger concentration of germs around even in the sanitary conditions they live in. It also means their bodies are used to warm environments.

They don't get colds frequently and diligently avoid cold water.

posted by redlines to Health & Fitness (12 answers total)

Maybe they are already feeling the illness and that makes them choose nice cold throat or fever-soothing things? Just a hunch.
posted by wellred at 9:37 AM on December 9, 2021

Response by poster: @wellred, oh, that's certainly not the case. In our culture, we choose warm things when we fall ill. Their exposure to cold drinks and cold bathing is always a reluctant one.
posted by redlines at 9:39 AM on December 9, 2021

Cold weather does open up mucus passages, dries out skin (which weakens defenses), makes noses run, lips crack etc, which all increase the number of passages for viruses to enter the body. So IMO, cold weather does correlate to sickness. The old saw is that people spend more time indoors as the weather gets cold which increases virus spread, but that feels pretty unsubstantiated to me in modern times. In hot weather climates, people spend more time inside in the summer.

However, I don't believe the cold baths or ice cream could cause this, unless they spend hours in the water I guess.

I bet if they actually studied and did a test, they'd find no correlation.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:42 AM on December 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

This study from Yale suggests that there could be a link between lowered body temperature and colds.

https://news.yale.edu/2016/07/11/warmer-body-temp-puts-heat-common-cold

(Sorry, I cannot get the link to work in the text after multiple attempts!)
posted by corey flood at 9:47 AM on December 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

Radiolab did an excellent episode on this exact thing.
posted by mezzanayne at 9:50 AM on December 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

I’m wondering if they’re already fighting a virus but the viral load is sub threshold and then getting the body cold just tips the balance.

I swear windy days don’t cause sicknesses but each time I’ve told my husband he’s nuts and taken the kids for a walk in the Santa Ana winds anyway they come home sick.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:50 AM on December 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

What kind of colds? Fever, drippy nose, sneezing? Or less dramatic sinus stuff, slightly sore throats, feeling a bit off?

Do they use air conditioning?
posted by trig at 10:01 AM on December 9, 2021

Drinking cold water might make your nasal mucous thicker, which could be interpreted as a symptom of a cold. I guess similarly for ice cream. Also with milk some people may interpret the texture of the fluid as being related to mucus production. This might also extend to ice cream. Cold baths probably result in the chills (ie feeling cold/shivery) which may be interpreted as 'a cold'.

I think the answer is a combination of confirmation bias, the placebo affect and interpreting unrelated reactions to cold drinks/food or baths as being due to a common virus.
posted by plonkee at 10:53 AM on December 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

My hunch (hunch only) is that being cold requires the body to work harder on all fronts to stay warm, allowing viruses to take advantage. (This coming from someone who once got a nasty cold after eating ice cream while standing in a chilly wind/rain situation while waiting for a bus. Never did that again.)
posted by Crystal Fox at 10:53 AM on December 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

Hypothesis: if the correlation is perfect, then they must not be drinking ice cold water or eating ice cream routinely, as that would imply they are always having colds. I suspect they only eat ice cream and drink ice cold water when they are doing something unusual like visiting a relative, traveling out of state, etc. Therefore getting exposed to new viruses is probably the answer.

As for Santa Anna winds: that’s probably a real effect, your kids have allergies. Or you’ve picked up some thing like valley fever which can be windborne.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 11:19 AM on December 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

The placebo effect is real: something you believe can heal you can, in some cases, heal you. So is the nocebo effect, which is the counterpart to the placebo. Something you believe can make you sick can, in some cases, make you sick. The nocebo effect could very well lower someone's immune response to a virus and enable the cold virus to take hold. Mind/body binary is more porous than we usually account for.
posted by nantucket at 11:22 AM on December 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

being cold requires the body to work harder on all fronts to stay warm, allowing viruses to take advantage.

yeah, it's a stress. And when you're stressed, you're defences aren't what they should be. If there's a virus in the vicinity, it's more likely to penetrate those defences.

I am not a doctor but I have gotten sick more than once after pushing myself past my normal limits. Physical and otherwise.
posted by philip-random at 12:15 PM on December 9, 2021 [4 favorites]