colds & flu...what really gets up your nose!
how do you catch a cold?
Although most people worry about colds and flu being spread by droplets in the air through sneezing etc, probably the most important route is via hands, then hand to eye or nose, or mouth.
So my top tip is to wash your hands to try to prevent spread!
what’s up your nose?
Once you get past your nostrils, the inside of your nose is actually quite a big space. Just inside you’d probably find some hairs, mucous and old crusty bogies. Mucous is the slimy stuff that’s made from glands in the fleshy lining of your nose (the mucous membrane) – and crusty bogies are just dried up mucous. (Here’s a word for you to savour, if you’ll pardon the expression - rhinotillexomania or compulsive nose picking of that dried mucous – yuk.)
Although it’s a nuisance when your nose is running, mucous is actually useful. It helps to keep germs, pollen and bacteria from getting to your lungs.
Further back inside your nose, there’s quite a big space. The lining is moulded into big folds. Because they’ve got a rich blood supply, these folds help to warm up and moisturise the air you breath. Then, right at the back, your nose connects to the back of your throat.
colds are viruses aren’t they? what exactly is a virus?
Viruses are not even a single cell – so they are usually much smaller than bacteria. They can’t reproduce on their own, so they have to hijack your own cells in order to make more of themselves. So they behave a bit like invading aliens, latching onto your cells and getting inside them. They particularly like invading the cells in the lining of your nose. Once inside, they use your own cells’ copying system to make lots of copies of themselves. Your cell then dies, and the new viruses escape and go on to infect other cells. Viruses nearly always cause disease.
viruses mutate don’t they? what does mutate mean?
This means that the virus changes its genetic make-up. Sometimes a mutation doesn’t make much difference to the way the virus looks or behaves; but sometimes it can make it more harmful to us, or more resistant to our own immune defences or medication.
how do viruses mutate?
Viruses can mutate quite often. It usually happens as a sort of copying mistake in its genetic material when it’s trying to make loads of copies of itself.
right, so what’s bacteria then
Bacteria are made up of a single cell, so they’re usually bigger than viruses. They are much more self-sufficient than viruses: they have the power to make more copies of themselves without hijacking human cells. Bacteria are everywhere – inside and outside our bodies – and many of them do us no harm (in fact some are actually useful to us).
the flu virus seems to affect you all over – but the cold only in your nose and throat and lungs - why is that?
Flu (or influenza to give its proper name) and colds are both caused by viruses. A bad cold may seem like flu, but real influenza usually makes you feel really awful with a high fever, aching muscles and joints and fatigue. You often can’t get out of bed. That’s just because of the way the flu virus spreads round the body, and the fact that your body’s immune system generally reacts in a much stronger way to flu viruses than it does to colds.
A cold doesn't just stay in URT (Upper Respiratory Tract)....you can feel tired, achy, headachy, have a cough, sinusitis and even a fever with a bad cold. It's just usually milder and yes, perhaps doesn't get the chance to spread in the same way that the flu virus does because the immune system seems to be able to deal with it before it gets through the front door (throat) - or at least the hall.
why won’t my doc give me antibiotics for a cold?
Antibiotics don’t kill viruses. They only work on bacteria. Antibiotics are specifically designed to sabotage the structure of bacteria, or to mess up their ability to divide. Viruses are generally more slippery customers. They lurk inside our own cells, so they’re very hard to harm without damaging our own cells too. So don’t expect your doctor to give you antibiotics for a cold. They won’t help, and over-using antibiotics can encourage bacteria to become resistant to them.
so modern medicine has cures for all sorts of really nasty stuff, how come there’s no cure for the cold?
According to the researchers at the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University in Wales, it’s very unlikely that we’ll ever see a cure for the common cold. There are lots of reasons. For starters, the common cold is not a single disease, but a collection of symptoms caused by hundreds of different viruses. Smallpox was relatively easy to cure because it was caused by just one virus; making a vaccine against one virus is much easier than making one against hundreds of viruses.
Another problem is that any cold cure must have virtually no side effects – even minor side effects might be worse than the actual cold. A cure would also need to be very safe…there would be millions of people using it every day. There’s also the problem that by the time you have a cold, it’ll probably be too late to treat anyway; anti-viral drugs need to be taken 24-48 hours after the onset of symptoms.
how long would it take for a new drug to come on the market – even if one was found?
From thinking about which new drug is necessary to getting it on the market, start to finish is now reckoned to take around 12 years and £600 million. That’s a long time and a lot of money! But finding the cure for something must be a great feeling. If you want to find out about a career discovering or developing new drugs have a look here: http://www.abpi-careers.org.uk/
what’s going on with a runny nose?
When you’ve got a cold or flu, your nose wants to do everything it can to get rid of the invading germs and protect your lungs. You sneeze, you cough….and you make a lot of mucous. Because of all the inflammation, the tiny glands in the soft lining of your nose become miniature mucous factories. So your nose runs and you can get that sensation of mucous dripping down the back of your throat, AKA post-nasal drip effect. Mmmmm, lovely!
i know they don’t cure you of the cold, but how do those decongestants work?
Your nose gets blocked when you have a cold or flu because the blood vessels in the lining of your nose swell up. This is because your body’s immune reaction to the infection increases the blood flow in the lining of your nose. Decongestants can help by making these swollen blood vessels shrink, which opens up the nasal airway. You can take decongestants either as a nasal spray, or by mouth. The nasal sprays are generally more effective and work faster.
what about flu powders, how do they work?
Flu powders and cold powders are basically a mix of medicines that can ease the different symptoms of flu and colds. So they may contain paracetamol or ibuprofen for your headache, fever and aching; a decongestant for your blocked up nose; a cough reliever for your cough; and sometimes an antihistamine which helps dry up your runny nose and stops you sneezing (as well as making you drowsy which can help you sleep).
why do colds seem to affect men more than women ;-) ?
One of the doctor’s golden rules is that if someone is well enough to come to the surgery, they probably haven’t got proper flu. You’d be amazed at how many people claim they’ve got flu when in fact they’ve just got a bad cold. Maybe it’s not surprising though – flu will get more sympathy and you’re much more likely to get a sick note or a day off school. Personally I think men and women are equally likely to pull this one!
what’s a sneeze?
A sneeze is a reflex reaction triggered by irritation of the soft lining inside your nose. It’s a great way for your body to get rid of any dirt or germs that shouldn’t be up your nose – but it’s also a great way to spread the virus up someone else’s nose. The thousands of tiny droplets that shoot out at great speed are stuffed with viruses.
what’s a cough?
Coughing is one of your body’s many tricks for clearing the lung passages. A cough is a reflex action caused by irritation of some of the sensitive nerve endings in the lining of your lungs. Your voice box closes automatically, and at the same time your tummy and chest muscles contract very quickly. The resulting blast of air flies out of your mouth at high speed, clearing your airways of dirt, germs or mucous.
A Cough is probably from two causes. Either viral infection in the lungs, causing irritation and excess mucous from the respiratory passages. Usually settles in 3 weeks or so. You can also get super-imposed bacterial infection though, if mucous lingers. This needs antibiotics, the other doesn't.
why does having a blocked up nose give you a headache?
Just like the lining of your nose, the lining inside your sinuses (the cavities your nose leads into) can get inflamed and swollen when you’ve got a cold. That’s what sinusitis is. It can be painful and it’s a common cause of pain in the face and headaches (often depending on which sinuses are affected). If they also start to fill up with mucous, which can become infected, then you may need antibiotics to deal with it.
what’s the nearest thing to snot that it’s OK to play with?
Well, this magic formula has been hanging around the Planet Science website like a bogie no-one’s told you about… So here, once again by popular request, is our very own SLIME formula!
What you'll need:
Borax (tip: you can buy this in the local chemist - our experience is that the more ye olde your chemist is, the more likely they'll be to have it)
White Glue of PVA type
Water
Food Colouring, suggest mixture of green and yellow with a tiny droplet of red for that authentic snot colour.
A sturdy sealable plastic container
Plastic cups
A tablespoon
A great love of slimy substances...
What to do:
First make up your Borax solution. 2 tablespoons of Borax dissolved in 500ml of water should be about right...
Take a cup of water and add it to 1 tablespoon of borax.
Mix 1/4 cup glue with 1/4 cup of water.
In the container add and 1/2 a cup of borax solution to 1/2 a cup of the glue solution. Add a few drops of food colouring.
Seal the container and SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE - go mad! Keep going... keep going... ok STOP!
Your snotty-substitute is ready to go!
What's happening?
The borax enables the glue (polyvinyl acetate) molecules to join together to form larger molecules called polymers. This, as you can see, makes a thickened, slimy gel that Fungus the Bogeyman himself would be proud of.
Spill some? Why not mop it up in a hanky then leave the hanky lying around and observe ARR (Adult Revulsion Reflex!)
Or surreptitiously hide a lot in a hanky then pretend to sneeze into it and display to family for an even bigger ARR!
Do we know how to have fun at Planet Science or what!?
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