infection rate increase in colder climates?

[passionatewriter]

im a bit confused by something a friend of mine said today. it seems "they" (the medical community) believe its more likely to catch something if you are in a colder climate? im in NH, USA..it gets pretty darn cold here but i was under the impression that those of us living in colder climates may have less of a chance of being infected by something (esp. on exterior surfaces) due to the fact that its FREEZING instead of warm and wet like in Ca. or La. or some other milder climate.

am i off my rocker? im just scratching my head.

[Quickening]

Maybe it has to do more with people's behaviours when it is cold. People who stay inside the house all the day with heaters on are more likely to get ill than someone in a warmer climate who goes out of the house often.

[3monkeys]

Where is NH? I am wracking my brain but I am getting blanks. I guess I could google it New Hampshire...... now where is that...... back to google......... Ok, now I know where it is.

Anyway, I live in a cold climate too, and its not so much the climate as such but the reduced day length in Winter. We all tend to sit inside a lot so tend to get a little run down. Our first winter here we all got horrible chest infections. The following winter here we were prepared and I started supplementing in March and manged to get through the winter ok.

So yeah, like Quickening said, its probable the lifestyle people have in the colder months.

[Seaweed]

I dunno. I have a different take on this as we have done almost 2 winters without heating & without any serious illness. Interestingly, the first winter there was a real evil flu bug going around which all the kids we knew got. We hung out with them all in small spaces & so on. My kids got a mild sniffle for a few days & the others were bed ridden. I am sure heat pumps have some effect & also too much heat. Remember the bacteria in the petri dish of agar in biology at school? We do go out of the house often regardless of the weather. Only really if we are having a howling rainy southwesterly gale do we stay inside. & we don't have that many of them in winter but it can be cold.

[3monkeys]

Maybe its cause we have 6 months of howling rainy westerly or easterly gales :ROFL:

[Seaweed]

:eek: I thought we had the worst weather in the country.

[3monkeys]

We have less of those icy cold but still days here and more of those hideous wet and windy ones.... The kind where you just don't want to go outside.

On those icy cold but still days we go outside and absorb the sun.

[Seaweed]

We're very coastal here too but I like to delude myself we only get 20 gales a year :LMAO:The longer I have lived here the less I classify one of our breezy days as a gale so that could be it.

Those icy cold sunny days can get real warm. I have photos of dd2 swimming nude in the harbour here in august! I was laying on the beach in a little dress at the time as it became a whopping 13degrees by lunchtime!!!

[passionatewriter]

you're nuts seeweed! lol

my friend is visiting soon and her comment was along the lines of "i hope my kids dont get sick b/c of the cold weather". or something to that effect. i am not direct quoting (quotes simply for convenience of reading). i just shook my head b/c it seemed to me that her kids have been sicker (in sunny Ca.) than mine in frigid NH (around Maine, Massachusetts, etc. etc. North East USA. i just dont think her kids are prone to be sicker in my weather than hers..and actually (other than lifestyle issues as you said), i tend to think that a colder climate is less hospital than a warmer one for buggies (im no sci pro but did have a few elementary classes in microbiology in college..but thats worth about...uh, nothing! lol!).

[Serephina]

I did read some research once where they found that people that sat with their feet in a bucket of ice water were more likely to catch a cold than those than didn't. I'll see if I can find a link, but from what I can remember the theory was that with vasoconstriction in the extremities the mucous membranes in the nose weren't able to work as effectively as a barrier against the bugs.

ETA: Found the link!

http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/22/6/608

[Spy]

How long is a piece of string? :D

The 'something' you 'catch' in colder climate is just not the same that the 'something' you 'catch' in warmer climate - the buggies are different!

And you do get used to whatever place you live in, that certainly includes buggies. So if you ever travel to less familiar places, you are probably more likely to 'catch' whatever lives there than the locals (who are already familiar with their own stuff and more or less dealt with them).

For the reasons above the statistical comparison of 'how many more people get whatever they get in one climate as opposed to the other' does not make much sense, too many things depend on lifestyle.

[MinorityView]

This is the reason you shouldn't kiss the locals when travelling :)

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

For the first three years, when our son went and lived in UK 6 months of the year, he used to get boils, and our doctor pointed out that the skin flora varies from country to country and the "stress" of travelling suppresses your immune system for a few weeks. Put those two things together, and it shows that knowing how to look after yourself, is very important.

On another note, I had a problem with my computer which needed technical help fro, the "help-desk" ~~~ which was Mumbai in India. The techo and I ended up in a long discussion about gut flora and microbiota, and he was saying that every time he lives a while overseas for a few years, and then comes back, his stomach takes a few months to "readjust" when he returns....

[Gitti]

This is the reason you shouldn't kiss the locals when travelling :)

That makes for a boring summer vacation. Well, I'm too old now anyway..;)

[3monkeys]

Gitti you're never too old

[momofsaa]

It seems to me the colder climates offer more opportunities for people to gather in a restricted environment offering more opportunities/people to pass the germs to and from.
Additionally, doesn't a reduced body temperature reduce the ability to fight infection?

I personally always had allergies in the winter. Since moving to a carpet free house I not only have not suffered allergies, I haven't really gotten sick.

[gilima]

I agree that lifestyle probably has more to do with it. I live in a very warm climate (read; hot and humid more than 6 months of the year!!) where most people spend more time indoors in an air conditioned enviroment. Even now during the cooler/dry season people still stay indoors. my kids are outside playing everyday and there is one house across the canal that you see people/kids outside (probably since they are also from somewhere else:giggle:) people will hang out by the pool or go to the beach, but thats it . I think that closed indoor enviroments are breeding grounds for " germies" or whatever at least for "bad air" whether hot air or cold air. We do have air conditioning in the summer...(I don't like the heat:hide:) I think we also have more mold issues here...but I may be wrong.