Study: the fllu spreads easiest at lower humidity and temparatures.

In a recent Mount Sinai School of Medicine study where the flu's relation to the environment was analyzed for ease of transmission, it was found that the flu virus prefers less humidity and colder temperatures. This could explain why there is a "flu season," and why winter is the time for it to infect people.

In Chinese medicine, the flu is an external evil that invades an individual. External evils are usually categorized according to dryness and temperature, also. It appears that the flu might initially be a wind-cold-dryness version of external evil that can change once it invades an individual.

Here is the author summary which explains the reasoning and the study very clearly:

In temperate regions influenza epidemics recur with marked seasonality: in the northern hemisphere the influenza season spans November to March, while in the southern hemisphere epidemics last from May until September. Although seasonality is one of the most familiar features of influenza, it is also one of the least understood. Indoor crowding during cold weather, seasonal fluctuations in host immune responses, and environmental factors, including relative humidity, temperature, and UV radiation have all been suggested to account for this phenomenon, but none of these hypotheses has been tested directly. Using the guinea pig model, we have evaluated the effects of temperature and relative humidity on influenza virus spread. By housing infected and naïve guinea pigs together in an environmental chamber, we carried out transmission experiments under conditions of controlled temperature and humidity. We found that low relative humidities of 20%–35% were most favorable, while transmission was completely blocked at a high relative humidity of 80%. Furthermore, when guinea pigs were kept at 5 °C, transmission occurred with greater frequency than at 20 °C, while at 30 °C, no transmission was detected. Our data implicate low relative humidities produced by indoor heating and cold temperatures as features of winter that favor influenza virus spread.

Read the entire study here

It looks like you can help yourself battle the flu by keeping warm, taking hot shower, and using a humidifer at night in your bedroom. Acupuncture and herbs can also help you stave off the flu or help you get over it quickly.

posted by: Michael G. Pingicer, M.S., L.Ac.

Aiyana Acupuncture & Chinese Herbs

41 Union Square West, Suite 511

New York, NY 10003

http://www.amazinghealing.com/

212.894.0767