"Feed a cold, starve a fever" is an adage or a wives' tale which attempts to instruct people how to deal with illness. The adage dates to the time of Hippocrates when fever was not well understood. His idea was the fever was the disease, and starving the sick person would starve the disease.
In 1574, John Withals published "Fasting is a great remedie of feuer" in a dictionary. The adage states that eating will help cure a cold; not eating will help cure a fever.
Going back to the time of Hippocrates, many people thought that fever was a disease in and of itself. [1] His treatment of patients with fever was said to be starvation. [2] The Greek physician has been credited with coming up with the idea, "Feed a cold and starve a fever". [3] Hippocrates thought that starving the fever was a way to starve the disease. He said "The more you feed a diseased body, the worse you make it." [4]
Some scholars believe that the interpretation of the adage is, "If you stuff a cold, you will have a fever to starve". Others interpret it literally. Nobody knows for certain where the phrase originated. [5] The first known publication of the adage was in John Withals's 1574 book, A shorte dictionarie most profitable for yong beginners. In the book Withals includes the phrase, "Fasting is a great remedie of feuer". [6] [7] [8]
In a 1942 paper published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, the "feed a cold, starve a fever" adage was determined to be justified according to medical knowledge. [5] [9]
In BBC Science Focus, an article discussed the positive effects of a ketogenic diet on illness. But they also state that there "may be a thread of scientific truth to the old adage 'feed a cold, starve a fever". [10] In 2002, what is believed to be the only study yet conducted into the adage was undertaken in The Netherlands. This appeared to support the belief, though was not large enough to draw conclusions about a population. [11]
A 2007 New York Times article concluded, "There is little scientific evidence behind the notion of starving a cold and feeding a fever, or vice versa." [12] A 2017 CNN article suggested that starving a fever is not a good idea. CNN quoted pediatric infectious disease expert Jon S. Abramson, as saying. "Feed a cold, feed a fever. Nurture your body, and never starve it". They also quoted Emory University internist Sharon Horesh Bergquist who agreed but also advised: "When you're sick, drink more than you think you need". [13]
When a person is sick or has infection in their body, white blood cells release cytokines to fight infection. The cytokines affect the hypothalamus part of the brain which may arrest hunger resulting in a loss of appetite. [14] In 2002, researchers in the Netherlands published a small-scale test in which 6 male participants were monitored following food consumption. They observed that consuming food correlated with increased levels of gamma interferon production, a cytokine that stimulates immune cells to respond to viral infections such as the cold, whereas fasting was followed by an increase in interleukin 4, used in the response to the bacterial infections which are a common cause of fever. [15] [11] Some scientists have said the results of the Dutch study have little merit because it was small-scale, and the results have not been replicated. [12]
Ruslan Medzhitov, of the Yale School of Medicine, states that the lack of an appetite is a common condition during an illness. Medzhitov has discussed experiments on mice, where mice that were infected with Listeria bacteria died when they were made to eat. The animals that stopped eating naturally eventually recovered. Sugar (glucose) was determined to be detrimental: mice survived after being fed protein and fats but no glucose. Another study of mice infected with the flu virus showed that the infected mice survived when fed glucose. The flu-infected mice died when they were not given food. [16] [17]
Bergquist suggests that liquids are more important for recovery than eating. She said that if a cold or fever has altered a person's appetite they should not force feed; however, a sick body needs nutrition in order to assist the immune system. [18]
West Nile fever is an infection by the West Nile virus, which is typically spread by mosquitoes. In about 80% of infections people have few or no symptoms. About 20% of people develop a fever, headache, vomiting, or a rash. In less than 1% of people, encephalitis or meningitis occurs, with associated neck stiffness, confusion, or seizures. Recovery may take weeks to months. The risk of death among those in whom the nervous system is affected is about 10 percent.
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease caused by dengue virus, prevalent in tropical and subtropical areas. It is frequently asymptomatic; if symptoms appear they typically begin 3 to 14 days after infection. These may include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin itching and skin rash. Recovery generally takes two to seven days. In a small proportion of cases, the disease develops into severe dengue with bleeding, low levels of blood platelets, blood plasma leakage, and dangerously low blood pressure.
Anorexia is a medical term for a loss of appetite. While the term outside of the scientific literature is often used interchangeably with anorexia nervosa, many possible causes exist for a loss of appetite, some of which may be harmless, while others indicate a serious clinical condition or pose a significant risk.
Fever or pyrexia in humans is a symptom of an anti-infection defense mechanism that appears with body temperature exceeding the normal range due to an increase in the body's temperature set point in the hypothalamus. There is no single agreed-upon upper limit for normal temperature: sources use values ranging between 37.2 and 38.3 °C in humans.
Scarlet fever, also known as scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by Streptococcus pyogenes, a Group A streptococcus (GAS). It most commonly affects children between five and 15 years of age. The signs and symptoms include a sore throat, fever, headache, swollen lymph nodes, and a characteristic rash. The face is flushed and the rash is red and blanching. It typically feels like sandpaper and the tongue may be red and bumpy. The rash occurs as a result of capillary damage by exotoxins produced by S.pyogenes. On darker-pigmented skin the rash may be hard to discern.
Influenza A virus (IAV) is the only species of the genus Alphainfluenzavirus of the virus family Orthomyxoviridae. It is a pathogen with strains that infect birds and some mammals, as well as causing seasonal flu in humans. Mammals in which different strains of IAV circulate with sustained transmission are bats, pigs, horses and dogs; other mammals can occasionally become infected.
Naegleriasis, also known as primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), is an almost invariably fatal infection of the brain by the free-living unicellular eukaryote Naegleria fowleri. Symptoms are meningitis-like and include headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, a stiff neck, confusion, hallucinations and seizures. Symptoms progress rapidly over around five days, and death usually results within one to two weeks of symptoms.
Leptospirosis is a blood infection caused by the bacterium Leptospira that can infect humans, dogs, rodents and many other wild and domesticated animals. Signs and symptoms can range from none to mild to severe. Weil's disease, the acute, severe form of leptospirosis, causes the infected individual to become jaundiced, develop kidney failure, and bleed. Bleeding from the lungs associated with leptospirosis is known as severe pulmonary haemorrhage syndrome.
In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a specific population or populated place when that infection is constantly present, or maintained at a baseline level, without extra infections being brought into the group as a result of travel or similar means. The term describes the distribution of an infectious disease among a group of people or within a populated area. An endemic disease always has a steady, predictable number of people getting sick, but that number can be high (hyperendemic) or low (hypoendemic), and the disease can be severe or mild. Also, a disease that is usually endemic can become epidemic.
Rickettsia rickettsii is a Gram-negative, intracellular, cocco-bacillus bacterium that was first discovered in 1902. Having a reduced genome, the bacterium harvests nutrients from its host cell to carry out respiration, making it an organo-heterotroph. Maintenance of its genome is carried out through vertical gene transfer where specialization of the bacterium allows it to shuttle host sugars directly into its TCA cycle.
Salmonellosis is a symptomatic infection caused by bacteria of the Salmonella type. It is the most common disease to be known as food poisoning, these are defined as diseases, usually either infectious or toxic in nature, caused by agents that enter the body through the ingestion of food. In humans, the most common symptoms are diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, and vomiting. Symptoms typically occur between 12 hours and 36 hours after exposure, and last from two to seven days. Occasionally more significant disease can result in dehydration. The old, young, and others with a weakened immune system are more likely to develop severe disease. Specific types of Salmonella can result in typhoid fever or paratyphoid fever. Typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever are specific types of salmonellosis, known collectively as enteric fever, and are, respectively, caused by salmonella typhi and paratyphi bacteria, which are only found in humans. Most commonly, salmonellosis cases arise from salmonella bacteria from animals, and chicken is a major source for these infections.
Japanese encephalitis (JE) is an infection of the brain caused by the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV). While most infections result in little or no symptoms, occasional inflammation of the brain occurs. In these cases, symptoms may include headache, vomiting, fever, confusion and seizures. This occurs about 5 to 15 days after infection.
Transmission and infection of H5N1 from infected avian sources to humans has been a concern since the first documented case of human infection in 1997, due to the global spread of H5N1 that constitutes a pandemic threat.
Paratyphoid fever, also known simply as paratyphoid, is a bacterial infection caused by one of three types of Salmonella enterica. Symptoms usually begin 6–30 days after exposure and are the same as those of typhoid fever. Often, a gradual onset of a high fever occurs over several days. Weakness, loss of appetite, and headaches also commonly occur. Some people develop a skin rash with rose-colored spots. Without treatment, symptoms may last weeks or months. Other people may carry the bacteria without being affected; however, they are still able to spread the disease to others. Typhoid and paratyphoid are of similar severity. Paratyphoid and typhoid fever are types of enteric fever.
Cat flu is the common name for a feline upper respiratory disease, which can be caused by one or more possible pathogens:
Pyroptosis is a highly inflammatory form of lytic programmed cell death that occurs most frequently upon infection with intracellular pathogens and is likely to form part of the antimicrobial response. This process promotes the rapid clearance of various bacterial, viral, fungal and protozoan infections by removing intracellular replication niches and enhancing the host's defensive responses. Pyroptosis can take place in immune cells and is also reported to occur in keratinocytes and some epithelial cells.
Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptoms begin one to four days after exposure to the virus and last for about two to eight days. Diarrhea and vomiting can occur, particularly in children. Influenza may progress to pneumonia from the virus or a subsequent bacterial infection. Other complications include acute respiratory distress syndrome, meningitis, encephalitis, and worsening of pre-existing health problems such as asthma and cardiovascular disease.
Sickness behavior is a coordinated set of adaptive behavioral changes that develop in ill individuals during the course of an infection. They usually, but not always, accompany fever and aid survival. Such illness responses include lethargy, depression, anxiety, malaise, loss of appetite, sleepiness, hyperalgesia, reduction in grooming and failure to concentrate. Sickness behavior is a motivational state that reorganizes the organism's priorities to cope with infectious pathogens. It has been suggested as relevant to understanding depression, and some aspects of the suffering that occurs in cancer.
Influenza prevention involves taking steps that one can use to decrease their chances of contracting flu viruses, such as the Pandemic H1N1/09 virus, responsible for the 2009 flu pandemic.
Angela Lynn Rasmussen is an American virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.
