最近，因为处于季节交替之际，不少人都得了感冒（have a cold）。
而《新概念英语》经典版第一册第61-62课中刚好讲到了动词have表示“生病”的用法，课上有学生问到have a bad cold中的bad是什么意思。当我告诉她是表示“严重的”的时候，她继续追问到：重感冒是怎么回事？这问题说起来也容易解答，但事后我还是想着应该查一查资料，确认一下有关“感冒（cold）”的真相。
于是，就有了下文。为了便于大家阅读，我对原文进行了译注，仅供参考。
The truth about colds
感冒的真相
【文章要点】
Doctor: Children under age 4 should not take medicines for colds
医生：小于4岁的孩子，感冒不能吃药。
Washing your hands is the number one recommended way to prevent a cold
预防感冒首选的办法就是勤洗手。
Antibiotics are not effective against viral infection
抗生素对病毒感染不起作用。
【正文内容】
(CNN) -- This may rock your winter world: You can't get a cold just from cold weather.
（美国有线新闻网）——你万万没想到的是：感冒不全是因为天冷导致的！
With people sneezing and coughing around you, or at your child's school, it's important to separate fact from fiction where colds are concerned. In fact, there are more than 1 billion colds in the United States every year, according to the National Institutes of Health.
当你身边或者你孩子学校的人打着喷嚏、不断咳嗽的时候，你一定要分清有关感冒的客观真相与主观臆想间的区别。事实上，根据美国国立卫生研究院的统计，美国每年大约有10亿多人次的感冒病例。
And those facts change as scientists learn more about how colds work. Some people swear by zinc as a means of shortening a cold's duration, but research on that subject has been spotty. However, a new study published in the Cochrane Library finds that taking zinc supplements may help ease cold symptoms and possibly even prevent the virus altogether. Still, the researchers were not able to recommend that everyone take zinc because they did not pin down a specific dosage or formulation that works.
当科学家对感冒发生的原委有了更多的了解之后，很多原先被公认的客观事实都在改变。有人相信锌可以缩短感冒痊愈的时长，只是对此的研究证据仍然不足。然而，考克兰图书馆（它汇集了关于医疗保健治疗和干预有效性的研究。它是循证医学的黄金标准，并且提供有关最新医疗的最客观信息。）新发布的一项研究表明，服用锌补充剂可以帮助减轻感冒症状，甚至可能防止病毒蔓延。尽管如此，研究者仍然没有推荐大家都服用含锌药物来治感冒，因为他们还没有确定具体的剂量，也没有给出有效的配方。
Here's what you should know about colds:
以下是关于感冒你们必须要了解的真相：
1. How colds are transmitted（感冒是怎么传播的）
You can make snow angels in shorts and a T-shirt, but the temperature itself won't transmit the cold virus. There are other hazards, of course, like frostbite, but a cold specifically does not come from the cold weather.
你可以穿着短裤和T恤在户外堆白雪天使，但是气温本身并不会传播感冒病毒。当然，天太冷会导致长冻疮等其他风险，但要是细加追究，感冒并不是天冷导致的。
Staying warm is, however, important for children with asthma. Sometimes cold weather can spark a flare-up; for those kids, wearing a scarf over their mouth and nose helps warm the air to prevent an asthma attack, said Dr. Peter Greenspan, a pediatrician in Waltham, Massachusetts.
但是，对于有哮喘的孩子来说，保暖很重要。有时候，天冷会导致疾病的发作。马萨诸塞州沃尔瑟姆市的儿科医生Peter Greenspan指出，对于患有哮喘的孩子来说，用围巾包住嘴巴和鼻子可以保暖，进而避免哮喘的发作。
If, however, your friend sneezes on a snowball and throws it in your face, that could give you a cold. Or if your friend sneezes on his or her hand and touches a doorknob that you also touch, and then you rub your eye with that hand.
然而，如果你的朋友对着雪球打了个喷嚏，然后把这个雪球扔到你脸上，你可能就会被感染而感冒。或者，你的朋友在手上打了个喷嚏，然后用手接触了门把，你接着也接触了同一个门把，然后用手揉了眼睛，你也会被传染感冒。
"You really have to actually catch the virus through a droplet from a person who's infected with the virus," said Dr. Sharon Bergquist, internal medicine specialist at the Emory University School of Medicine.
爱默里大学医学院的内科专家Sharon Bergquist医生指出，“你只有直接接触到感冒患者身上的病菌才会被感染。”
But here's why winter is particularly hazardous: Droplets from a sneeze or cough can travel farther on a cold, crisp day than on a humid one. The nasal passages get dried out in cold, dry weather, and these weather conditions also pull moisture out of droplets to allow the virus to stick around in the air longer.
但是，冬天之所以更容易感冒的原因是这样的：与潮湿的天气相比，在干冷的天气里，打喷嚏或咳嗽所散发出的病菌微粒更容易传播得更远。鼻部通道在干冷的天气里很容易变得干燥，而且干冷的天气也容易吸走病菌微粒中的水分，进而导致微粒容易更长时间吸附在空气中。
Also, people come into close contact with each other more frequently in winter because they are indoors, making transmission more likely.
此外，在冬天，因为天气太冷，人们经常待在室内，从而会更频繁地相互接触，这就使得病菌传播的可能性大大增加了。
Viruses stay on surfaces such as telephones, doorknobs, elevators and any communal type of space, Bergquist said.
Bergquist医生说，病菌会在附着在很多物体的表面，如电话、门把、电梯以及任何其他社区的公共区域里。
Around your house, using disinfectants such as Lysol may prevent colds from spreading, she said.
她继续说到，在房子周遭使用来苏尔（一种防腐消毒液体）等消毒剂，可以预防感冒的传播。
A person is contagious a few days before he or she starts noticing symptoms. There is a two- to five-day incubation period. That means if you're exposed to someone who is infected, you're probably safe if you're symptom-free about five days after you've come into contact with him or her.
当一个人发现自己出现感冒症状时，TA其实几天前就已经感冒了。感冒一般有2-5天的潜伏期，这就意味着，如果你在接触了感冒的人之后五天内没有出现任何感冒症状的话，你就没事了。
2. How long a cold should last（感冒会持续多久）
A cold should last about seven days, Bergquist said. There's no proof of "feeding a cold" or "starving a fever" -- what you eat probably won't shorten that time of being sick.
Bergquist医生说，感冒会持续七天左右。没有证据表明“伤风时宜吃，发烧时宜饿”——无论吃什么，都不太可能缩短感冒的时长。
In the preschool age group, you can expect kids to get almost a cold every month during fall and winter months, Greenspan said.
Greenspan医生说，对于学前儿童来说，在秋冬两季，几乎每个月都会得一次感冒。
One cold can seem to stick around for a long time, but is really the result of catching multiple bugs, he said. That doesn't mean a child has had the same illness the whole time.
他说，得一次感冒，似乎会持续较长时间，但是这其实是因为感冒者同时感染了不同的病菌。这就意味着每个孩子不会只生一种病。
There might be more serious problems if there are new symptoms, such as facial pain in older kids, a fever or a worsening cough, Greenspan said.
Greenspan医生继续说到，如果患者出现新的症状，比如说年龄更大的孩子会出现脸部疼痛，或是发烧，或是恶化的咳嗽，病情就会更严重。
A cold doesn't cause other bacterial infections, but it does make you more susceptible to them. A sign that you might have one of these is that you have a cold, start to feel better after a few days, and then get worse, Bergquist said. You should see a doctor if you have fever, phlegm and severe sore throat that's not improving after three days.
感冒不会导致其他病菌的感染，但的确会因此让患者更容易感染上其他病菌。Greenspan医生说，如果你开始感冒了，几天后感觉好些了，但接着又恶化了，这就意味着你可能感染了其他病菌了。如果三天后，你的这些症状（比如发烧、痰多、喉咙肿痛）没有好转，就得看医生。
3. Resistance varies（每个人的抵抗力不尽相同）
Just as there are a lot of different viruses, every individual is different in ability to resist colds, Greenspan said. There is probably a genetic component, but it also has to do with exposure in the past.
Greenspan医生指出，正如病菌分不同种类一样，每个人对感冒的抵抗力也不一样。这与遗传有关，但也跟过去的生活环境有关。
That's why a cold has the ability to infect everyone in a household except for perhaps one or two lucky ones who don't even sneeze.
因此，每个家庭里可能大部分人都感冒了，但总有一两个幸运儿，连喷嚏都不打一个。
4. Treatments（感冒治疗）
Doctors don't recommend cold medicines for children under age 4. Medicines that are available are not cures, anyway. They can relieve symptoms for a certain number of hours, but that's it.
医生一般不建议4岁以下的孩子服用感冒药。但是，现存的药物并不能治愈感冒，只能让感冒者在服用了药物之后的几个小时里，感冒症状有所减轻，仅此而已。
While some people swear by supplements like echinacea, there's no scientific basis for them as cold remedies (or prevention measures, for that matter). They're probably not going to harm a child, Greenspan said, but he has no basis on which to recommend them.
尽管有人相信像紫锥花这样的补充剂有疗效，但是并没有科学依据证明它们可以治愈感冒（或预防感冒）。Greenspan医生说，这些药物可能不会伤及孩子的身体，但他并不推荐服用。
Zinc supplements may have some benefit, as the new study finds, but also have downsides -- besides nausea and a bad taste in the mouth, they may interfere with the body's uptake of other key minerals, researchers said. The new study makes Greenspan a little more open to the idea that zinc works, but researchers did not narrow down a particular preparation of it that is effective. Whether it's truly helpful is still an open question, he said.
新的研究表明，锌补充剂可能有一些疗效，但是也有副作用——研究者指出，这些药物除了会导致恶心和口臭之外，也可能会影响患者对其他重要矿物质的吸收。这项研究让Greenspan医生更加相信，锌对感冒会起一定作用，但是研究者并没有给出具有疗效的配方。他认为，锌是否真的对感冒有疗效仍然值得怀疑。
Antibiotics are not effective against viral infection, Bergquist said. They may be prescribed for bronchitis and ear infection, which are bacterial in nature, but should not be taken for the common cold.
Bergquist医生认为，抗生素对于病毒感染没有疗效。抗生素对于支气管炎和耳朵感染有疗效，但不能用来治愈感冒。
Some people also wrongly believe the flu shot can prevent the common cold. They may feel the flu shot didn't work last year if they caught a cold, but the two are not related. There are more than 200 viruses roaming around in the winter, and the cold and the flu are different types.
有人错误地认为流感疫苗接种可以预防感冒，他们觉得如果自己感冒了，是因为去年注射的疫苗没有起作用。其实，流感和感冒是两回事。冬天里大约有200多种病菌活跃着，感冒和流感属于两种不同的疾病。
5. Preventing a cold（感冒预防）
Washing your hands is the No. 1 recommended way to keep yourself and your kids free of colds. You're supposed to sing the full "Happy Birthday" song twice in the soaping and rinsing process in order to get the complete effect, Greenspan said. Alcohol-based hand sanitizers also work.
勤洗手是预防你和孩子感冒的首选办法。如果要让洗手达到最佳的预防效果，建议你涂抹肥皂和搓洗的时间要足够长，长到你能把生日歌完整地唱两遍。
A good night's sleep can go a long way in preventing respiratory infection, Bergquist said. People who sleep less than seven hours a night have a three-fold greater chance of picking one up than someone who sleeps eight or more hours, she said.
Bergquist医生认为，睡好觉可以大大预防呼吸道的感染。她指出，与每晚睡8个小时或更多时间的人相比，每晚只睡7个小时或更少时间的人，得感冒的几率要大三倍。
Also, always cough into your elbow rather than your hands to prevent your cold from spreading, experts say.
此外，专家指出，咳嗽时，用肘部而不是用手掌挡住嘴巴，可以更好地防止感冒的传播。
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