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Your throat hurts. Later you begin to sneeze. Then, a babbling stream of snot bursts from your nose. In the end, you cough. Maybe your colds don't take this exact route, but you can probably predict the path they'll hack through your head. |
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What determines a cold's course through your besieged head? . |
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"My 'I don't know' isn't based on a lack of interest," cold researcher Owen Hendley assures me in a wide,
Southern drawl. "It's based on: We don't know."
An aficionado of rhinoviruses, which cause at least one-third of colds in adults, Hendley says the common cold is uncommonly hard to understand. One surprising revelation, though, is that your painful parade of symptoms isn't exactly the fault of the virus. |
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"What we do know is that the symptoms aren't because the virus eats the inside of your nose out," Hendley says. "It's the body's own inflammatory response that causes the symptoms." . |
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A cold virus gets into your nose when you touch your germy fingers to your nose or eyes. ("You gotta do
something pretty stupid to get it in you, I'm sorry to say," says Hendley, who admitted having just
caught a cold from his kids.) The virus, be it rhino, corona or some other cold-causing breed, infects
cells and multiplies, its numbers concentrating at the back of your nose. The infected cells send out an
SOS, and it's your very own response to that plea that makes you wish you hadn't bothered.
Among the possible culprits are leaky blood vessels. As a normal part of fighting disease, your vessels leak special portions. If these leak into your throat, Hendley says, they may irritate the tissues there. Leakage, plus swelling of blood vessels, goes on to cause congestion in your head. Maybe. The coughing is a bigger puzzle. "I absolutely do not know why that comes late," Hendley says. "You're all sloppy and snortin' and carryin' on -- maybe the virus is carried to the lower airway?" |
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This raises the snot issue. . |
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"Hah-hah! That gooey stuff we all know and love!" says Hendley. "It has interesting viscous properties
related to the fact that it's meant to transport stuff." The raison d'etre of snot, it seems, is
to catch invading dust, germs and small flies, and then, powered by underlying ciliated cells, sluice the
foreign body down your throat and into the acid pit of your stomach. Perhaps, Hendley says, your cells
and glands manufacture more of the stuff when your body senses a mass invasion. Perhaps you slop and
snort because your body is trying to wash away the invading horde of rhinoviruses. Perhaps you
accidentally wash some into your bronchia and lungs.
Generally, cold symptoms, and your odds of infecting others, reach a crescendo on day two or three -- as does your viral population. How does Hendley know about the viral population up your nose? |
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He offers students at the University of Virginia $300 and four days in a hotel in exchange for squirting virus up their nose and then monitoring the mayhem. . |
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Curiously, one in 20 subjects will reject the virus completely, even though they have no antibodies
indicating they've already fought that virus. And 25 percent of those successfully infected will report
no symptoms. Either their bodies ignore the SOS, Hendley says, or they have a massive tolerance for
discomfort.
"With a cold, it's subjective: Your head feels stuffed up. But there's no objective standard -- your nose doesn't fall off." You just wish it would. |
 Vocabulary
rhinorrhoea, n.:
This is the fanciest way of describing your babbling, bubbling stream of snot. You probably recognize the
last part of that word, and the first half, rhin, is Greek for nose. (A rhinoceros is literally a
horn-nose.)
Check out more of "The Skinny On ..." stories:
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Hannah Holmes usually fights the sniffles from her home in Portland, Maine; however, this month
she'll be nosing around as Discovery Online's correspondent in Aruba, the best place on earth to view the
solar eclipse taking place on Feb. 26.
A fresh "Skinny On ... " arrives here every other Friday, adding to her extensive work for Discovery Online. Hannah's writing also appears on the pages of
Escape, Outside, Sierra, Backpacker, Eco Traveler and Women's
Sports and Fitness. Send her a note at skinny@online.discovery.com.
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Learn more about unexpected connections to everyday things with the "Connections" CD-ROM game, which
you can buy online in
Discovery Shopping.
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Main WebLinks Picture: Jack Mortensbak | Copyright © 1998 Discovery Communications, Inc. |