Feed a Cold Starve a Fever: What Does Science Say About This Old Wives Tale?

in science •  8 years ago  (edited)

We've all heart the saying; "Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever." Mothers and grandmothers have been telling their children and grandchildren this for generations it seems. However, in this day and age of modern scientific analysis we don't have to rely on "Old Wives Tales" being true for medical advice. However do you wonder if modern science has ever explored whether there is any truth to this saying?


Image Source: Pixabay

What Exactly Is A "Cold"?

A "cold" is an upper respiratory infection (this means nose, throat and air pathways in the head). You are likely familiar with them (duhh), however do you think a cold, like many illnesses is caused by just one virus/bacteria? You read a lot about the cold being the Influenza virus a lot right?

Time for science A "Cold" is not actually caused by just one possible thing! You would not be alone in thinking that there is just one virus (influenza) that goes around causing colds, but there are actually many! These viruses include: rhinovirus, coronavirus, influenza (both A and B) which is actually the virus that causes the "flu" but can be milder and classified as just a "cold", parainfluenza (despite containing influenza in its name it's actually quite different from the influenza virus), adenovirus, and oddly enterovirus (which is weird because entero means intestine, and it's odd that an intestinally transmitted virus ends up causing an infection in the upper respiratory tract... hmmm what are you people doing with your noses so close to the intestines... wait! never mind... don't tell me). [1]


Ohhh, so this is how the enterovirus gets involved...

The most common way that you can catch a cold is by touching someone else's ... secretions (eww). They sneeze, get some nice boogies on their hand and touch something that you then touch and the virus goes along for the ride. Interestingly these viruses can be spread from anywhere between 3 days before you show symptoms to up to 3 weeks after (this I did not know!).[2], [3], [4]

So Should I Feed This Cold or Not?

There is surprisingly little research on the subject! Here is some information, we are often told to increase our fluid intake to help fight a cold. However research indicates that there is no beneficial link between increased fluid consumption and patient outcomes (aka no link between recovery time and drinking more liquids). [5] AND increased fluids may actually make outcomes slightly WORSE, but the authors clearly state that more work would need to be done before that information is believable.

Okay but what about feeding it. Should I do that? The answer to that one is seemingly a yes if this study done on viral and bacterial infections in rats is to be believed. [6]

What the authors saw here was that not eating was protective against bacterial infection, while a lack of glucose was lethal during viral infection. So in the case of a viral infection like a "cold" one should keep on eating, as not eating lead to worse outcomes for the rats with viral infections.

TL;DR

Yes! Feed a cold, but don't go out of your way to pound down those liquids (unless you are running a slight fever, then liquids may help with dehydration).

What About Starve A Fever?

Our body temperatures are regulated by a portion of our brain called the hypothalamus. When macrophages (macrophages are one of the classifications of white blood cells, they engulf invaders and then dissolve them) encounter an invader in our bodies they release a compound which signals to other macrophages "hey recruit thine brethren, and get thine ass over here and help me vanquish this foul demon." This compound is called Interlukin-1 alpha, and it is a member of a class of compounds called a pyrogen because when it reaches the hypothalamus it also induces an increase in body temperature (a fever!).

What is the point of the fever? Well from the body's perspective it causes an increase in the white blood cell division rate, so more white blood cells to fight the infection, and it also helps slow the reproduction rate of some bacteria and viruses which multiply most effectively at body temperature (98.6 °F or 37 °C). [7]

Yeah Yeah Yeah, but should I starve it when I am sick?

No. In fact fevers are actually quite beneficial and are associated with a better outcome when you have an infection. [8] Even treating a fever with a fever reducer is not associated with better health outcomes, and is typically done only for comfort. [9]. In general for a low grade fever, it is best to let it be.


See, even (Bruce Dickenson) Christopher Walken wasn't starving a fever... don't know why one would eat a cowbell though

So The Old Wives Tale....

It's correct for the cold, feed that, but wrong for the fever, don't starve it. Perhaps we should re-write the saying to "Feed A Cold, Feed A Fever. Damn It, Eat When You Are Sick. Give Your Body The Nutrients It Needs To Fight Off The Infection." You can use the easy to remember acronym FACFAFDIEWYASGYBTNINTFOTI... hmm that doesn't seem good... I'll keep working on that.


Sources

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC104573/
  2. http://www.racgp.org.au/afp/2015/januaryfebruary/a-is-for-aphorisms/
  3. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)12162-9/fulltext
  4. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(05)70270-X/fulltext
  5. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004419.pub3/abstract;jsessionid=D924BB6E0DDA31611E51D6AE7918E5EE.f03t03
  6. http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)30972-2
  7. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111101130200.htm
  8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2590120/
  9. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0031168/

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If you like this work, please consider giving me a follow: @justtryme90. I am here to help spread scientific knowledge and break down primary publications in such a way so as to cut through the jargon and provide you the main conclusions in short (well compared to the original articles at least!) and easy to read posts.

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Hi @justtryme90 this is @giantbear. Please follow us on @steemiteducation a new account where we share all educational posts like yours.

You got it. I will try to help support some of the posts you share. :)

It would be great if we could chat sometime. SteemStem is a great addition to this platform, and we want to do something similar which include all aspects of education. We would greatly appreciate your input.

Stop by the #steemstem room on steemit.chat :)

nice.....resteem and upvote for your post....

Thank you very much. :)

u r welcome...

Thanks for this useful information. Now following you!

Thanks! Will try hard to keep the content quality high. :)

wow!!! you've have touched medicine, microbiology, biology and education.... thanks for sharing

And thank you for reading.

You are most welcome

Thank you for writing in a way that is understandable.

I am a big work in progress, but comments like this make me feel like I am really headed on the right track! Thank you for reading, and I am glad you got something out of the blog. :D

"...in a way that is understandable" --> I could not have said it better. Accessible science writing is a great gift. Please keep up your important work.

I can promise you, I am only just getting started. Thank you for the kind words. Comments like this make my day :D

I thought it went, 'Feast or Famine...Fate or Misfortune' ? Oop - wait a minute, that is my lovelife - oh never mind !

Lol. I'm sure I can come up with a really "easy" to remember acronym for that one too... ;)

Thanks for playing @justtryme90 !

keep calm.jpg

Playing what?

Vernacular meaning, thank you for your contribution, that's all
keep calm.jpg

Oh, well thank you very much! I was confused :D

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Sorry for that! You have my upvote for your effort !

Hi @justtryme90,

Did you read anything during your research about what to eat and what not to eat when your sick? Just a possible idea for a future blog post I know that I'd be interested in 😛

I love this post and consider it a standard to work toward (especially with the way you cited sources!) Thanks for clearing this myth up for us!

The available literature (and there isn't a lot) didn't go into that much detail with regards to the food eaten. It was more along the lines with how immune function against a virus or bacteria was effected by the presence of more or less glucose (blood sugar). So I could try to make a follow up post and see if I can find any more information, but based on what I saw it didn't look like that sort of information was available for me to present (YET!).

Thank you for your kind words, and I am glad you enjoyed the post. I try hard to ensure that sources I used (and then lots of additional wiki sources for readers reference) are available for my posts. I think its useful for anyone who wants to follow the bread crumbs.

A nice blog! I've always thought that starving your body of nutrients, especially when it is under strain from illness sounds like a pile of kak, so now with this blog to shove in the next persons face who tells me this lie, I should be able to abruptly silence them with knowledge!

I only wish I could find more studies on this to further stack up the evidence. :)

Thanks for reading, commenting, and I am glad you enjoyed the blog.

If you didn't know..... NOW YOU DO!!
This is probably the best written blogs I've seen on here! Sources and all! Enjoyed it!

Thank you very much! I just wanted to write about something that we all think about (getting colds!). I'm really glad you liked it :D

Very informative, thank you.

Thanks for reading :)

I dont know how I did it, but I have a summer cold and feeling lousy. Thank you for this timely information!

You are welcome, thank you for reading.

This is more like an art rather than science :)

Science is art... to me :)

I see you! Keep up the good work.

Thanks @kryptik!

FACFAFDIEWYASGYBTNINTFOTI

Very helpful acronym man! Sure helped remembering it lol..

That bad boy just rolls right off the tongue ;)

I have a question though. Is there an acronym to remember that acronym? 😂😂