WE'VE all heard it before, "Don't play in the rain, you'll catch a cold," or "Dress warmly, you'll get ill if you are cold," both of which are commonly told to you by one (or both) of your parents.
But is there any truth to the fact that getting cold or wet impacts your chances of getting the sniffles?
Verdict:
NO - with caveats
The short answer is no, you will not catch a cold or the flu by simply being cold or wet.
The common cold and the flu are caused by a variety of different viruses all of which are transmitted either through the air, in droplets or by touching contaminated surfaces.
The weather, climate or your state of being wet has no impact whatsoever on you catching any one of these viruses.
In order to catch a cold or the flu, you have to be in close proximity with someone who is ill or come in contact with something that person has touched or used.
This could mean touching a hand towel the ill person used and then rubbing your eyes.
However, the year end is known as "flu season" and everyone is advised to get their flu shots around then in preparation for it.
The flu season sees numbers of cases of folks catching a cold or the flu skyrocket.
During this period countries in the northern hemisphere are in the middle of winter so it is understandable how catching acold and being cold could be seen as linked.
However, the reason why people get ill at the end of the year is only indirectly linked to the temperature outside.
During winter people tend to stay indoors in close proximity to each other with the windows shut to keep the heat in.
This an excellent environment for a virus as it makes it easy for it to hop from person to person.
Furthermore, one of the more common cold viruses (e.g. Rhinovirus) spreads more easily in lower temperatures.
A Finnish study in 2016 indicated that for every 1 degree Celsius decrease in temperature, the chances of an individual contracting a cold increased by 8%.
However, their study was to examine the relationship between short-term variations in temperature and humidity and the risk of Rhinovirus infections in a subarctic climate.
Nearly 75% of the "infection episodes" that the 937 conscript soldiers involved in the study experienced happened when the temperature was below 0 degrees Celsius.
In Malaysia however, while we don't experience winter at the end of the year, we usually get the monsoons around then.
Heavy rain also has a tendency to make people huddle together indoors, which again provides an excellent environment for a nasty to bug to go around.
Notice in the West where they have winter, parents tell their kids to dress warmly so as not to catch a cold. Here in Malaysia, parents are more concerned over whether or not your hair is wet.
While there is no connection between having wet hair and catching a cold, there are certain conditions that are influenced by having wet hair.
Warm and moist environments, like if your head is wet, are excellent conditions for bacteria and fungi to thrive.
These bugs do not cause the common cold or the flu, but they do cause other unsavoury conditions like folliculitis or ringworm.
Saying that, you can get seriously ill if you get really cold, this is called hypothermia.
In order to become hypothermic however, you would need to bring your core body temperature down to below 35 degrees Celsius which would not ordinarily happen here in Malaysia unless you've been sitting in a walk-in freezer all day.
Hypothermia has some nasty effects (such as death) as essentially your body is being cooled down to the point where it cannot function any more, but most of these effects will disappear if you warm yourself up in time.
References:
1. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/can-wet-hair-make-you-sick/
3. https://sites.utexas.edu/think-twice/2019/03/28/catching-a-cold-from-the-rain/
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5035958/
