Mothers and grandmothers at last can feel vindicated because scientific research shows if you don't stay warm you can catch a cold.
For years the theory that chilling the surface of the body, through wet clothes, feet and hair, can lead to illness has been dismissed as having no scientific basis.
No longer. Now, researchers from the Common Cold Center at Cardiff University appear to have shown that being chilly really can cause a cold to develop.
Ron Eccles and Claire Johnson recruited 180 volunteers to take part in their five-day study during the city's common cold season.
Half of the participants immersed their feet in bowls of ice-cold water for 20 minutes. The others sat with their feet in empty bowls. Over the next few days, almost a third of the chilled volunteers developed cold symptoms, compared with fewer than one in 10 in the other group.
© Copyright 2005 by United Press International
