Original Article
Exposure to Cold Environment and Rhinovirus Common Cold — Failure to Demonstrate Effect
N Engl J Med 1968; 279:742-747October 3, 1968DOI: 10.1056/NEJM196810032791404
The effect of exposure in a 4°C room and a 32°C water bath on experimentally induced rhinovirus Type 15 infection was studied in 44 antibody-free volunteers. Volunteers were exposed to cold at selected intervals: at inoculation; during incubation; during maximum illness; and during recovery. Infectivity, illness severity, quantitative virus-shedding patterns, antibody response, leukocyte response and bacteriologic flora of the upper respiratory tract were evaluated in subjects exposed to cold and in a similar number of controls. Although exposure to cold abolished the characteristic increase in neutrophils during illness, there were no significant changes in the other findings. Thus, this study demonstrated no effect of exposure to cold on host resistance to rhinovirus infection and illness that could account for the commonly held belief that exposure to cold influences or causes common colds.
Supported in part by a grant (FR-00350) from the Clinical Research Centers Branch, National Institutes of Health.
I am indebted to the volunteers for their co-operation, to Dr. George Beto, director, and Mr. Dee Kutach, assistant director, of the Texas Department of Corrections, and Mr. Myrl Alexander, director, Bureau of Prisons, United States Department of Justice, for assistance in the volunteer program, to Miss Joan Enterline and Mrs. Barbara Baxter for technical work, to Dr. Louis A. Leavitt, Methodist Hospital, Houston, and Dr. David M. Fried, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, for use of the Hubbard tanks, to Dr. Ronald H. Thompson, National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, Bethesda, for use of the metabolic chamber and to Dr. David Ailing for the statistical analyses.
Source Information
* From the departments of Microbiology and Medicine, Baylor University College of Medicine, and the Methodist Hospital, Houston, Tex., and the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Laboratory of Clinical Investigations, Bethesda, Md. (address reprint requests to Dr. Douglas at the Department of Microbiology, Baylor University College of Medicine, 1200 Moursund, Houston, Tex. 77025).
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