[Kim Jaeho's Life Story]<245> The Contribution of Cold Medicine

Many people in our country believe that taking medicine is necessary to recover when they are sick. It is common to encounter people who think that if a doctor does not prescribe medicine when they visit a hospital due to illness, the doctor is neglecting their duty. The same applies when catching a cold. It is easy to find people who feel that they should naturally receive and take cold medicine to recover quickly.

For those who believe that taking cold medicine helps the cold get better, there is at least a placebo effect stemming from the belief that the medicine aids recovery. Moreover, the medicines commonly known as cold medicine have effects that alleviate symptoms such as runny nose, cough, headache, and fever, so it is not unreasonable to consider cold medicine as the primary contributor to recovery. But what is the actual contribution of cold medicine?

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s National Health Information Portal introduces the common cold as a disease that no one has gone through without catching at least once in their lifetime, with adults catching it on average 2 to 3 times a year and children 6 to 8 times. Since it generally heals naturally in about a week without special treatment, many people do not visit hospitals. However, according to data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, before COVID-19, about 19 million people were treated for colds annually, which is a large number.

Because anyone can catch a cold, it is easy to assume that everyone knows well about colds, but do people really understand and respond well to colds? The fact that the number of people treated for colds dropped to about 10 million in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that there is much room for prevention if people respond well, and it raises doubts about whether people are responding properly.

If people responded well to colds, they would catch colds much less frequently and recover more easily when they do, reducing the effort of visiting hospitals for treatment, avoiding complications, maintaining good condition, improving quality of life, and saving a significant portion of the annual 2 trillion won medical expenses, making the effect enormous.

Let’s examine the process of catching and recovering from a cold. Most pathogens causing colds are various types of viruses, with rhinoviruses accounting for the majority. Cold viruses are transmitted when a patient coughs, sneezes, or talks, releasing small droplets into the air, or through contact with the patient or sharing contaminated objects, entering the body through the mouth, eyes, or nose.

Once the cold virus enters the body, symptoms appear after an incubation period of 1 to 3 days. These symptoms are not caused by the virus itself but by the immune response produced by white blood cells, which are immune cells, to eliminate the virus. During this immune response, white blood cells actively remove the virus, and most cases heal naturally within about a week to 10 days.

People tend to think that anyone exposed to a cold virus will catch a cold, but as seen with COVID-19, not everyone gets sick after exposure. White blood cells in our body destroy the virus, so many people do not catch a cold even if the virus enters their body, and those who do get sick recover because white blood cells actively remove the virus.

Thus, prevention and natural healing of colds depend on white blood cells. What effect does taking cold medicine have on this natural healing process? Cold medicines do not kill cold viruses but alleviate symptoms. While they reduce discomfort by easing symptoms, they may also interfere with the virus-eliminating activity of white blood cells, potentially delaying recovery.

So, what is the best way to handle a cold for natural healing? Since restoring the immune cells’ strength is best, it is important to minimize non-urgent energy consumption to support the immune response focused on eliminating the cold virus. Reducing non-urgent physical and mental activities and taking comfortable rest is recommended. Being in an oxygen-rich environment is even better, and drinking plenty of water is essential.

When sick or injured, following the immune response that reduces appetite, it is good to fast like animals within the limits of one’s physical strength, and light meals focused on easily digestible fruits are also good. It is easy to think that one should eat more when sick, but our body stores enough energy to survive about a month on water alone, so there is no need to stockpile ramen during a quarantine.

Since cold viruses are transmitted through small droplets in the air, patient secretions, or contact with contaminated objects, it is important to avoid contact with highly infectious materials and to wash hands thoroughly after going out to prevent infection.

In the long term, maintaining high immunity is important to prepare for exposure to cold viruses or catching colds despite infection prevention efforts. By maintaining high immunity through a life-affirming lifestyle that switches on the life switch (see Life Story episode 68), one can protect health not only from colds but from all immune-related diseases.

It is best to avoid taking cold medicine if possible, and if symptoms are severe and hard to endure, to minimize its use. Since it is the white blood cells that ultimately drive out the cold, we should support their work rather than hiring many supervisors who interfere with their activity.

Kim Jae-ho, Independent Researcher

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.