Cold weather - healthy or not

Joe Public

I've often heard people say that cold weather is more healthy because it kills the bugs. Maybe some of the bugs outside don't live as long but bugs are usually passed between people indoors and more so in cold weather when more people are indoors. When we are cold our immune systems are also compromised making us more susceptible to picking up colds and flu. The air is usually dryer in cold weather and bugs do better in dry air.
The only thing healthy I can see about cold weather is if you like walking or playing in the snow then you may end up getting more exercise than usual.

dirtyghettokid

the only way to keep bugs at bay is to stay away from people lol

chin_grin

Yeah, tell that to the psychrophiles.

gbee

Bugs, more of them actually do prefer moist warm environments.

Cold weather can kill them or make them hibernate until someone brings them into a warm centrally heated house and then it's bonanza time. So this goes partly to explain some of your findings.

Snow, particularly a good blanket covering for three or four days will actually do more to kill of bugs and over wintering insects as it literally smothers them and it kills off cold and flu viruses and goes a long way to prevent the spread of these from incidental contact, like touching door handles, community railings, community seating etc.

You should be noticing that we do not have an endemic of colds and flues and those that have colds or flue, are shrugging them off in a day or two ~ unless that person is constantly in a centrally heated environment.

Rob A. Bank

Winter is a bad time for humans in this country, though cold weather improves the land by killing bugs and pests. The harvest in 1947 was one of the best after the exceptionally severe winter that year.

Human mortality varies from season to season with an excess of winter deaths in western and southern Europe.

There are 1500–2000 excess winter deaths in the Ireland annually.
http://jech.bmj.com/content/54/9/719.extract

"Portugal suffers from the highest rates of excess winter mortality (28%, CI=25% to 31%) followed jointly by Spain (21%, CI=19% to 23%), and Ireland (21%, CI=18% to 24%). Cross country variations in mean winter environmental temperature (regression coefficient (β)=0.27), mean winter relative humidity (β=0.54), parity adjusted per capita national income (β=1.08), per capita health expenditure (β=-1.19), rates of income poverty (β=-0.47), inequality (β=0.97), deprivation (β=0.11), and fuel poverty (β=0.44), and several indicators of residential thermal standards are found to be significantly related to variations in relative excess winter mortality at the 5% level. The strong, positive relation with environmental temperature and strong negative relation with thermal efficiency indicate that housing standards in southern and western Europe play strong parts in such seasonality."
http://jech.bmj.com/content/57/10/784.abstract

So Im afraid cold wintery weather cannot be described as 'healthy' in Ireland.

:eek:

GSF

The cold weather is "healthy" in so far as it kills of a lot of quite ill & frail people, so the remaining population will by definition be healthier. Whether thats something to be happy about though is another matter.

isle of man

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

Winter is a bad time for humans in this country, though cold weather improves the land by killing bugs and pests. The harvest in 1947 was one of the best after the exceptionally severe winter that year.


:eek:

tjat because the nitrgon is socked into the ground from the snow.

Joe Public

Why/how does the snow carry nitrogen as against rainfall?

isle of man

i havent a clue to be honest, thing the simple way is it collects it from the air like a sponge
i think lol.

Or it could be that it gives a gradule release over time so the ground has chance to absorb it.


Lol i dont know the reason, but i do know its true, that snow seams to have a better an effect than rain
farming folk you see, we know these things:D

Joe Public

I did a search on it and found out that rain also brings down nitrogen but a blanket of snow has other advantages like keeping the ground temps more even.

http://www.adn.com/2008/10/08/550298/blanket-of-snow-is-a-poor-mans.html


You are obviously a poor farmer :-)

thetonynator

isle of man wrote: »

i havent a clue to be honest, thing the simple way is it collects it from the air like a sponge
i think lol.

Or it could be that it gives a gradule release over time so the ground has chance to absorb it.


Lol i dont know the reason, but i do know its true, that snow seams to have a better an effect than rain
farming folk you see, we know these things:D

the nitrogen in air is not usable by plants, there are 3 forms of nitrogen which are and i can't remember them right now!

snow ghost

The cold slows down cold bugs and viruses.

People tend not to socialise as much in very cold weather or come into contact with other people as much - transport problems, not wanting to go out, etc - so the spread of bugs and virsuses is lessened.

To confirm the above, research in England and Wales last winter found a considerable drop in winter death rates and they had one of their coldest winters in decades. This was due to there not being a major flu epidemic, although swine flu had been forcast as a pandemic.

So overall the cold can be healthier.

cscook

The Irish Times had this article back at the start of the month and have a link to it again with the current freeze. I hadn't known that the cold air could cause blood pressure to rise - or that it made your platelets sticky.