Children live in a petri dish of bacteria and viruses.
They catch colds and flu regularly, as often as 6 to 8 times a year. Yet school continues while attendance declines.
Our doctor’s best recommendations, washing hands, including vitamin C in one’s diet, getting plenty of sleep and staying hydrated, do not have much impact; there are still shelves at the pharmacies, loaded with ‘cures.’
Doesn’t that picture mean there must be a much larger factor that controls when and why children and even adults get sick?
Why are more illness reported in winter, especially at Christmas and other winter holidays?
We all live in an amazing home, called our body.
Understanding how that body works can be very helpful. This article will discuss how our body avoids colds and flu, until we do things that get in the way!
“You can see a lot by observing,” Yogi Berra, a famous baseball catcher and later a coach once said.
Most everyone understands how our blood is pumped around by our heart, arteries, veins, and capillaries.
However, there is much more.
Blood is more than blood; it also contains lymph fluid, along with red and white cells, T-cells, oxygen and nutrients.
Every cell in our body must receive blood or it dies, and as blood and lymph fluid reach the cell, amazing things happen!
Oxygen, nutrients, and salts pass through the cell wall; carbon dioxide and other waste products pass out.
Each cell separates the ‘spent’ blood from lymph fluid; spent blood flows inward through capillaries and veins to the center of our body to be returned again.
Lymph fluid however, flows in separate ducts to our skin, as well as inward, and then back to our heart, and a critical part of the lymph system are peanut size “nodes” located within the ducts that return lymph fluid to the heart.
There are as many as 800 nodes in an adult body. External nodes ‘in’ our skin will receive our attention here, although there are internal nodes as well.
Lymph nodes are organs of our body, as are the liver, spleen and others that exist beneath our skin, mostly above our waist, and above our elbows, as well as in our neck.
In order to learn why this immune system fails us when we contract flu or ‘catch’ cold, a comparison to a person falling through thin ice on a lake, and quickly dying from hypothermia can be helpful.
Hypothermia is defined as dangerously low body temperature; below 95°F .
In the case of hypothermia, the human body and its extensive temperature control systems work to keep the body, especially internal organs, such as liver, spleen, kidneys near 98.6 .°F
When our organs cool just two or three degrees, they no longer work, and our body dies!
This data tells us that when lymph nodes become cold they no longer function; they no longer serve as our immune system!
Nodes that are cold are not effective and give bacteria and viruses a pathway to our entire body. Bacteria can then multiply rapidly, and we come down with a flu or a cold.
However, we can keep our lymph nodes working by avoiding conditions that cool lymph nodes.
We need not walk on thin ice!
We can wear scarves, and warm clothing in winter.
We can avoid cold wind on bare skin, like our neck.
We can keep our upper arms under the covers at night.
We can avoid cooling off quickly when our skin is covered in sweat; evaporating sweat cools our skin quickly.
By keeping our lymph nodes warm we avoid colds and flu.
Children have an extra problem during holidays. Candy and cookies loaded with sugar are everywhere. After eating a load of sugar, their body converts the sugar into energy and sweat glands are called upon to keep their body at 98 degrees by sweating.
While it may be impossible to control sugar to zero, it is possible to keep them, their skin, and their lymph nodes warm.
These simple things have allowed my wife, Lu, and me, to avoid colds and flu for over 40 years and we are in our 90’s now.
However, when Lu did not wear a scarf during a cruise to Alaska, a cold wind blowing across the cruise ship’s gangplank caused her to have a cold the next day.
And, when I did not wear a jacket at 10 p.m. one winter evening in my workshop; after 30 minutes, I shivered, and immediately went indoors. But the damage was done – a cold quickly turned into pneumonia and hospitalization.
That was at least 10 years ago! Lesson learned!
Can you remember your last colds or flu well enough to know if you allowed your skin and lymph nodes to get cold?
My goal is the same as yours; to keep everyone healthy and happy.
I have also have data and observations for a series of articles on health, energy, global warming and forest fire control.
Look for another article within the next weeks.
To contact Art Krugler, email a.krugler@icloud.com
Sources used in this article:
Medical book: Crouch, James. Human Anatomy. Lea & Febiger; 3rd edition. 1978.
Hender, Daniel. “Benefits.” Hender Massage Taree, 2022, hendermassage.com.au/?page_id=198.
Cleveland Clinic. my.clevelandclinic.org. 2024. Present practices.
Krugler has taught courses at universities, presented at conferences, served on boards for Geothermal Resources Councils, a chamber of commerce and is the President of Krugler Engineering Group, Inc., a Nevada corporation.
He has traveled to 14 nations, seven on geothermal power projects, has four patents and two pending, and has published articles in two trade magazines.
He and his wife, Lu have been married happily for 67 years, with three children, and four granddaughters (all achievers).
Growing up on a dairy farm in the woods of northern Wisconsin, Krugler observed nature and the world around him with curiosity. He still does.
His writings are intended to improve people’s lives, to better the community, and potentially impact national views.
Ten courses in chemistry, and more in physics and math has helped. He has also obtained 8 licenses to practice engineering in six states, but he is not legally allowed to practice medicine anywhere. He can however, share what he has observed in the medical field.
An Engineer Looks at the World 