With Cold season now well and truly upon us, you’re probably seeking ways to dodge getting a sniffly nose.
Others might be reading this in desperation to getting rid of one.
Glugging down orange juice, taking multivitamins and avoiding going out with wet hair are some tips you will have heard about.
But do they really help you avoid coming down with a cold? Or are they just myths?
MailOnline spoke to experts to separate fact from fiction, and give you the best tips to avoid a bad bout of cold.
Multi-vitamins
It is a multi-billion pound industry centered on claims that they will keep you healthy and prevent you from getting sick.
But experts say you shouldn’t rely on multi-vitamins.
In fact, there is nothing available that will prevent you from getting a cold — that is according to Cardiff University’s Professor Ron Eccles, who has spent decades researching the common cold.
He said: ‘There is a lot of hype on multi-vitamins, but none of them really abolish the cold otherwise we would know about them.’.
Orange juice
Glugging down orange juice each morning won’t prevent you from catching a cold.
But the vitamin C it contains may speed up your recovery, experts believe.
Adults need roughly 40mg of vitamin C a day, half of the amount found in a standard glass of orange juice.
Professor Eccles, who has worked on numerous trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, said: ‘There is a possibility that taking very large doses of vitamin C will act as an antioxidant and dampen down the inflammation.
‘But the evidence is weak.’ But the NHS says there’s little evidence vitamin C prevents colds or speeds up recovery.
Wet hair and cold air
If you find yourself needing to rush out with wet hair on a cold winter’s day, do not worry about getting ill.
The common folk story, told for over a century, is heavily disputed by experts.
Respiratory viruses, such as the ones that cause colds, the flu and Covid, are passed on through bodily fluids like coughs and sneezes.
Despite your grandmothers’ warnings, wet hair does not make you more attractive to viral particles, and just having wet hair will not make you more vulnerable.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert at the University of East Anglia, has worked on every major epidemiological outbreak over the past 30 years.
He said: ‘You will only catch a cold from being in contact with somebody else with a cold and that is the primary reason.
‘If you are outdoors, you don’t really catch respiratory infections because they are all just blown away in the wind.’
The real reason why we get colds in the winter is, according to experts, because we spend more time crammed inside poorly ventilated spaces close to other people — the perfect conditions for viruses to thrive.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
