Cold Comfort

Rather than rely on cold medicines to suppress symptoms, tune up your immune system and help your body heal itself this winter.

By Angela Pirisi

Ever wonder why some of us fall constant prey to seasonal colds and flu, while others waltz through winter without so much as a sniffle? If you find yourself among the bed-ridden, you can certainly lay some blame on the fact that viruses thrive in cold, damp conditions. Your body, meanwhile, must adapt to winter's climatic changes at a time when you're spending your days mostly indoors in close contact with others.

But that still doesn't answer the question you're probably pondering: Why me? Compelling new research has some scientists now arguing that colds and flu aren't just a simple matter of viral exposure. A recent study at UCLA revealed that subjecting healthy people to someone contaminated with a cold for 48 hours did not give the healthy subjects a cold. The conclusion? Colds result not from a cold virus, but from "an internal disturbance of the body's immune system," according to the researchers.

Before figuring out how, in addition to yoga, you can bolster your defenses, it helps to understand what you're dealing with—and how your body defends itself. Colds and flu wreak havoc in different ways. The common cold may be caused by a number of viruses, some of which can lead to secondary bacterial infections such as bronchitis, strep throat, and pneumonia. Cold viruses inflame the mucous membranes lining the upper respiratory system. The flu virus, on the other hand, comes in three different strains and infects the entire respiratory tract. The flu, therefore, has a higher capability of leading to serious complications.

As you probably know first-hand, colds and flu quickly throw a well-ordered immune system into chaos. But while the prevailing onslaught of symptoms (coughing, sneezing, congestion, runny nose) may be uncomfortable, they signal a counterattack being waged by the body against the viral intruder. As William Mitchell, N.D., explains, the body tries to make life unpleasant enough for a virus or bacteria that it will want to leave. "The body does this in a number of ways," he says. "It withholds iron so that microbes can't use it to fuel up; excretes free radicals; raises the temperature; slightly changes the pH balance in tissues; and engulfs a microbe through a process called phagocytosis."

The immune system is an elaborate communication network of defensive and offensive cells. At the helm are lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that includes B cells and T cells. B cells produce antibodies that act like a stun gun to neutralize invading antigens in preparation for T cells to finish them off. Both keep an endless watch throughout the body. "Helper" T cells coordinate attacks on invaders, while "suppressor" T cells call the cease-fires.

T cells secrete proteins like interferon, which boasts antiviral properties. Meanwhile, the offensive is comprised of cells called macrophages that circulate in the blood and scavenge for foreign antigens in a perpetual search-and-destroy mission. Macrophages engulf unwanted bacteria, then destroy them with enzymes called lysosomes that they secrete.

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