Colds and cold feet

Filed in archive Miscellany on November 14, 2005

Cold feet equates to more colds?

Scientists say they have the first proof that there really is a link between getting cold and catching one.

Staff at the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff took 180 volunteers and asked half of them to keep their bare feet in icy water for 20 minutes.

They found 29% developed a cold within five days, compared with only 9% in the control group not exposed to a chill.

Professor Ronald Eccles, director of the centre, said the study had shown, for the first time, a scientific link between chilling and viral infection - something previously dismissed by other studies.

I didn't realize there was even a center specializing in colds.