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posted by martyb on Monday May 11 2015, @03:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the please-pass-the-tissues dept.

According to a story at International Business Times, growing up poor can have a range of consequences for a person’s status and future opportunities — and it can also make someone more likely to catch colds later in life, a new study shows. Writing in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity, Carnegie Mellon University psychologist Sheldon Cohen and colleagues say they’ve found a connection between childhood poverty and a middle age with more sniffles, coughs and sneezes.

"We have found initial evidence for a biological explanation of the importance of childhood experiences on adult health," Cohen said in a statement. "The association we found in young and midlife adults suggests why those raised by parents of relatively low socioeconomic status may be at increased risk for disease throughout adulthood."

http://www.ibtimes.com/poverty-childhood-makes-you-more-susceptible-colds-later-life-study-1452070

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by romlok on Monday May 11 2015, @08:26AM

    by romlok (1241) on Monday May 11 2015, @08:26AM (#181404)

    As I understand the common cold, the effect should be the exact opposite to what you suggest.
    The common cold isn't one illness, but a whole range of variations on a common illness, and once you've had one of them, your immune system remembers, and you won't suffer from that particular cold virus again.
    Consequently, if you suffer from more colds later in life, it means that you are being exposed to more cold viruses which you did not encounter during your childhood.

    My immediate take on the article was that poor children don't get as many chances to travel to other places, and interact with different people (and their cold viruses) as rich children do. Air travel, for example; spending many hours in a small space with a group of strangers from all over the world; is a great vector for disease transmission.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2015, @03:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2015, @03:45PM (#181501)

    your immune system remembers, and you won't suffer from that particular cold virus again.

    Ahh yes, and what does the immune system do to combat viruses?