The Effects of Stress and Your Body's Ability to Fight Off a Cold

The Effects of Stress and Your Body's Ability to Fight Off a Cold

This article is on the effects of stress and your body's ability to fight off a cold. It talks about how everyday stress can make you more susceptible to infection. The article also talks about

Barbara Braun PhD of the Park Nicollet Institute in Minneapolis recently did a survey on 249 patients and found that a majority believed using traditional remedies helped to ease cold symptoms even though medical science has not proven it. She also found that many people thought antibiotics help treat a cold even though virus' and not bacteria cause a cold. The patients did know that over the counter (OTC) drugs could help relieve symptoms for a limited time.

Sheldon Cohen PhD of Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh did a survey about why some people get affected by the cold in the first place. Of all 256 volunteers, they were asked about stress factors in their life and infected them with a cold.

Dr Cohen found that the most damaging kinds of stress are caused by long term problems. People are more likely to come down with a cold if they are suffering from stress.

Some people have turned to stress relief to relieve the symptoms to help fight off infections.

9) Dr Cohen specializes in researching how environmental stress affects human health. It was appropriate to do a survey about their stress factors and infect them with a cold to prove that stress is a factor in your vulnerability to a cold.

10) In Dr Braun's survey the readers are unaware of questions being asked, assuming she did a survey on what are the ways to treat a cold.

12) Did not state how many of each gender was in each survey or how each one was selected.

14) In Dr Braun's survey, assumed she asked questions regarding ways to treat a cold but it didn't have anything to do with why people are affected by a cold as much as another person.

In Dr Cohen's survey, he was straightforward. He asked them questions with regards to stress. He then infected them with a virus and monitored his patients for results.

15) Yes it was used correctly. They gathered their information from the patients by directly asking them. Although some of the patients responses were incorrect, they method used to obtain the information was still correct.