Do you ever take the train or the bus? Or perhaps you’ve been to the cinema recently, or visited the theater, or just been out and about. Then you’ll have noticed that there is a lot of coughing, sniffling and sneezing going on. Winter has arrived, bringing with it that time of the year that we could all do without: the season for colds.

There’s no denying it: when the mercury in the outdoor thermometer starts to sink in winter, the risk of catching an inconvenient cold rises. It all adds up over the course of a lifetime: by the age of 75, each of us will have already survived some 200 colds. If the symptoms last for five to six days on average, that means that each of us will have spent some two to three years of our lives with a runny nose, sore throat and other signs of a cold. Most of them come in the winter: experts calculate that 80 percent of all coldrelated disorders occur in the cold, wet time of the year.

A propos wet: why do our noses start to run when it’s freezing cold outdoors? “That has to do with the mucous membranes in our nose,” explains Dr. Uwe Gessner, a specialist in analgesics at Bayer Vital. “The mucous membranes heat the air we breathe in like a heating system to about 30 degrees in fractions of a second.” We pump one half to a liter of air into our lungs with every breath we take, increasing to up to ten times as much on exertion. “When it’s cold outside, the mucous membranes can only do their job by producing greater amounts of watery mucous at the same time – and that’s when our noses run.”

Not too bad, one might think. But when the throat starts to hurt and the head and limbs to ache, and the sufferer feels tired and exhausted, the diagnosis quickly becomes clear: you’ve got a cold again!

The common cold, which although unpleasant must not be confused with the much more dangerous influenza, is mainly caused by viruses. “More than 200 species are known, all of which infect the cells of the mucous membranes in the nose and throat where they multiply rapidly,” says Dr. Gessner. Particularly widespread are the rhino-viruses, the causal factors of roughly half of all colds. “These tiny invaders are barely 20 nanometers in diameter,” adds Gessner. As a comparison: A one-Euro coin is theoretically large enough to hold sufficient pathogens to infect the whole of humanity. Can you imagine what the door handles in the underground look like in the colds season?

Once the viruses have found a way into our bodies, they do not remain undiscovered for long. “They damage the mucous membranes in the upper respiratory tract and trigger an inflammatory reaction there. The body’s immune system works at top speed, increasing circulation to the mucous membranes and boosting mucous production,” says Gessner.

And what can we do? “The best thing to do is avoid getting a cold in the first place,” says the Bayer expert. We can do a lot to strengthen the immune system during the high-risk season by washing our hands thoroughly and frequently, wearing appropriate clothing, drinking plentiful quantities and pursuing a healthy diet. In Germany, help is at hand from the country’s first cold alert service. This unique service at www.erkaeltung-online.de, which covers 36 regions throughout Germany, provides information on which parts of the country are currently affected by the latest wave of viruses and now also supplies weather data. Together with tips on the right behavior in the colds season, this early-warning system helps users to minimize the risk of infection.

But what can be done when the virus has already taken hold? “We recommend that patients combat the initial symptoms such as a sore throat and headache with Aspirin plus C, a drug product that combines acetylsalicylic acid, the tried and true active ingredient of Aspirin, with vitamin C,” says Dr. Gessner, who advises a visit to the pharmacy. Thanks to its acknowledged anti-inflammatory properties, the active ingredient in Aspirin is particularly suitable for fast relief.

“If these coldrelated ailments are joined by a runny nose during the further course of the infection, pharmacists will generally recommend a product like Aspirin® Complex,” says Dr. Gessner. This product, which is well known in specialist circles as an excellent medicine for colds, helps patients suffering from a runny nose in conjunction with coldrelated pain and fever by dissolving congestion and promoting the selfhealing process.