The European Draft Myth Debunked
All Europeans are frightened to death of drafts. Here the myth of drafts is debunked in the Huffington Post:
Get cold, and you’ll catch a cold
It must be true because your mother always said so. Right?
The Truth: Mom was wrong. “Chilling doesn’t hurt your immunity, unless you’re so cold that your body defenses are destroyed — and that only occurs during hypothermia,” Vreeman says. “And you can’t get a cold unless you’re exposed to a virus that causes a cold.”
The reason people get more colds in the winter isn’t because of the temperature, but it may be a result of being cooped up in closed spaces and exposed to the spray of cold viruses.
November 29th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
I think the draft thing is more about muscle pain than colds. You catch drafts and then your muscles are sore. I’m from Europe and I’ve never heard that you can catch a cold from a draft.
November 30th, 2012 at 7:34 am
Mena – it is still an ongoing debate here in the house since we have a young child and my partner is from Europe. Drafts – deadly drafts – that I know don’t make you catch a cold but my partner insists do. It’s not just my partner, my friend from Russia said she heard that all her life. Also I read a book by a Serbian author and he speaks about how he was raised to believe that drafts make your head explode. Ha.