
While your chances of being the unfortunate recipient of a snotty nose and sore throat are much less in summer than winter, the nearly 200 types of different viruses that put the ‘common' in common cold defy the seasons.
For starters, if you work in an office, you're probably cooled by an air conditioning system. This can raise your chances of becoming infected. Air conditioners extract moisture from the air as well as depleting the lining of mucus in your nose that protects you against airborne viruses. Infections have a greater hold in a cold nose, too, which air conditioning systems promote.
Another common trigger for summer colds is stress. While many associate summer with carefree fun and a whole lot of relaxation, the holiday time often has you running around trying to do a multitude of things at once. Not exactly relaxing, is it? Any form of stress lowers resistance to infection, as it depresses your immune system response.
So what can you do to prevent a cold from dragging you into a pile of dirty tissues? For one, wash your hands regularly. It may sound like the sort of advice fit for primary school kids, but we often forget how easy it is to transfer infection-causing micro-organisms from the hands to the eye surface or nose.
Then of course, there's the tried-and-tested vitamin C to give your immune system a boost. Another immune system-friendly mineral is zinc, which can also inhibit the cold virus from replicating. One of the most popular herbs for the treatment of colds and flu, Echinacea. At the right dosage, this can reduce the severity of symptoms and duration of the illness. Finally, garlic contains sulphur compounds that make it an effective defence against colds, and also an antibiotic-like agent for the treatment of acute bronchitis which often follows colds and flu.