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Experts have wondered for years why viruses seem to spread more easily during the winter.  Some people believe that it is because people stay inside more and the germs spread more easily when people are in close proximity to each other.  No one has been able to fully prove this theory, although it does make sense.

The influenza viruses coat themselves with a fatty material that hardens in cold temperatures and this shell protects them when they are outside of the body.  Once back inside, this coating will melt away in the warmer temperatures inside you, releasing the virus, and allowing it to do it’s thing and infect us and cause us to get sick.  See, when it’s warm outside, this shell would melt and the virus would die.  But when it’s cold, that doesn’t happen, it just sort of cocoons itself and waits.

So, knowing this, scientists could develop some medication or find an herbal product that can block the viruses production of this shell.  This could cut down on the number of virus related colds that people get during the winter.

Probably the best way to keep yourself from getting sick at any time is simple hand washing.  Now I’m not one to talk about hand washing because I’m real bad about not doing it.  I didn’t grow up in a house that was, you know, germ phobic.  I think we all played in the dirt as kids, drank from the hose, ate stuff that fell on the floor, but today everyone is so sanitary.  I think that when we are young, our immune system is learning how to fight stuff that we come in contact with.  I don’t get sick very often.  Even before when I ate poorly I rarely got sick.  I think it had to do with my upbringing.  Kids now live in this sterile world of alcohol gel on their hands every time they go in or out of a room.  Mom spraying Lysol on everything to kill germs.  Well, these germs are building up our immune system so when we are adults our bodies know how to fight these germs and win.  And the anti-biotic issue, my gosh, don’t get me started on that.  Every little sniffle, go to the doctor for a Z-pak.  And people wonder why healthcare is so expensive.

We were talking about colds here.  The center for disease control really pushed the hand washing thing.  What happens is someone is sick, they have a cold or something.  The virus is spread by excretions from the body, that how the virus goes from one person to another.  So, someone who is sick rubs their runny nose with their hand and wipes it on their pants.  Come on, you know it happens.  But the virus in the, um, snot, is still on the finger a little bit.  Then the person touches something like a desk, a pen, a doorknob, a keyboard, things like that and the virus is transferred from the finger onto the object.  You come along and touch the same spot and bingo, you now have the virus on you.  Then your eye itches, or you rub your nose, or you wipe your mouth, something to where the virus enters your body.  Now you get sick.  Or someone sneezes and the spit flies through the air with the viruses in it, nice huh?.  The viruses float around until you breathe them into your lungs, bingo, you’re sick.  That’s it in a nutshell how it happens.  And antibiotics do nothing for viruses, nothing.

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