Common Cold

20 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Common Cold | Amazing Facts 4U

1. The earliest records of the common cold is found in Egyptian Ebers Papyrus , the oldest known medical text in existence.
2. The common cold affects people all around the globe. Children catch cold 5 to10 times a year while adults catch a cold about 2 to 5 times.
3. The older you get, fewer colds you have because you have acquired an immunity to a number of viruses. You may escape with just one cold a year.
4. By the time you turn 75, you would have probably suffered from 200 colds and spent two years of your lifetime coughing and sneezing.
5. Common cold is generally self-limiting and mild and 50% of the cases are usually cured within 10 days while 90% cases get cured within 15 days from the day of infection.
6. Amazingly antibiotics are prescribed for more than 60 percent of common colds, despite the fact that bacteria are involved in only 2 percent.
7. People who are either very young or very old or people who are immunosuppressed are likely to have complications by the common cold. The most common complications are ear infection, pharyngitis, and sinusitis.
8. The amazing fact is that a common cold virus is capable of reproducing 16 million offspring just within 24 hours!
9. It has been found that the patient with the common cold is most contagious at days 2 to 4 of the cold.
10. It was found that a typical sneeze travels 2 feet at a speed of 15 feet per second while the normal breath travels at a speed of 5 feet per second.
11. Scientific study has found that if you stand 6 feet away from the person infected with common cold, you are likely to be safe.
12. The amazing Fact is that a single sneeze can spray 100,000 viruses into the air.
13. Rhinoviruses usually survive for three hours outside of the body, and may live up to 48 hours on skin or other touchable surfaces like elevator buttons, kitchen counters, keyboards, light switches, toilet paper rolls, doorknobs, etc.
14. The proper remedy for common cold is difficult because there are over 200 different viruses that have been implicated in common cold. It is further complicated by the fact that viruses could have multiple strains. Rhinovirus is responsible for about 40% of common cold cases and has over 100 different strains. Mutations can produce new strains of the virus. There could be no single universal vaccine that can cure the common cold.
15. Colds are spread by touching infected surface and then touching your nose or eyes, or inhaling virus-containing droplets in the air after an infected person sneezes or coughs.
16. Contrary to the popular myth, kissing usually doesn’t transfer the common cold viruses. However, an Eskimo kiss which is an act of rubbing a nose with another person’s nose may transfer viruses.
17. The lower the humidity, the more moisture evaporates from sneeze and cough droplets, the farther the germs can travel. Dry air also dries out the mucous lining in our nasal passages which is an important protective barrier. Both these contribute to the increase in colds during cold, dry weather.
18. Scientists have been able to sequence the entire genome of all the major rhinoviruses.
19. The longest sneezing fit ever recorded is that of Donna Griffiths (UK) (born 1969) who started sneezing on 13 January 1981 and achieved her first sneeze-free day on 16 September 16 1983, the 978th day. She is believed to have sneezed an estimated one million times in the first year of sneezing.
20. Vitamin C can’t cure a cold but 200 mg of it every day may decrease the duration of a cold by a day or two. It is yet to be proven.

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~ By Amazing Facts 4U Team

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