What the Common Cold Is
The common cold is an illness caused by a virus infection located in the nose. Colds also involve the sinuses, ears, and bronchial tubes. The symptoms of a common cold include sneezing, runny nose, nasal congestion, sore or scratchy throat, cough, hoarseness, and mild general symptoms like headache, feverishness, chilliness, and generally not feeling well.

Colds last on average for one week. Mild colds may last only 2 or 3 days while severe colds may last for up to 2 weeks. Adults average 2 to 3 colds per year and children 6 to 10—depending on their age and exposure. Children's noses are the major source of cold viruses.

Is it a Cold or the Flu?
A cold is a milder illness than influenza (the flu-type of virus). Influenza typically causes fever, muscle aches, and a more severe cough. However, mild cases of influenza are similar to colds. There are over 100 different cold viruses. Rhinoviruses (the cold-type of virus) are the most widespread and cause at least one-half of colds.

Cold viruses can only multiply when they are inside of living cells. When on an environmental surface, cold viruses cannot multiply. However, they are still infectious if they are transported from an environmental site into the nose.

How Colds Are Spread
Cold viruses grow mainly in the nose where they multiply in nasal cells and are present in large quantities in the nasal fluid of people with colds. The highest concentration of cold virus in nasal secretions occurs during the first three days of infection. This is when infected persons are most contagious.

Cold viruses may at times be present in the droplets that are expelled in coughs and sneezes. Nasal secretions containing cold viruses contaminate the hands of people with colds as a result of nose blowing, covering sneezes, and touching the nose.

What’s more, cold viruses may contaminate objects and surfaces in the environment of a cold sufferer. Young children are the major reservoir of cold viruses and a particularly good source of virus-containing nasal secretions.

Experiments have demonstrated that a cold virus readily transfers from the skin and hands of a cold sufferer to the hands and fingers of another person during periods of brief contact. Also, cold viruses readily transfer to the hands as a result of touching contaminated objects and surfaces.

16 Things You Can Do Today to Help Prevent Colds and the Flu
By Bios Life Franchise Owners Burma Hicks and Bill Johnston

1. Wash your hands frequently. Most cold and flu viruses are spread by direct contact. Someone who has the flu sneezes onto their hand and then touches the doorknob, keyboard, a kitchen glass where the germs can live for hours or longer, only to be picked up by the next person who touches the same object. Carry hand sanitizer with you in your purse, glove compartment of your car, diaper bag, lunchbox, etc.

2. Keep clean towels in the bathroom. Replace your hand towel frequently (some experts recommend daily). Launder towels in hot water to kill germs. Using paper towels instead of cloth towels is highly recommended by many health care professionals. The same holds true in the kitchen if you and your family frequently wash your hands at the kitchen sink.

3. Don't cover your sneezes and coughs with your hands. Germs and viruses cling to your bare hands, muffling coughs and sneezes with your hands results in passing along your germs to others. When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. If you don't have a tissue, turn your head away from people near you and cough into the air.

4. Avoid putting your hands near your eyes, nose or mouth unless you have washed them first. Most bacteria and germs are spread from a surface, then to your hands, and then to your face. Touching their face is the major way children catch colds, and a key way they pass colds on to their parents.

5. Clean your shared spaces. Remember phones, keyboards, steering wheels, TV remotes, office equipment, and other items used by several people during the day. It's a good idea to disinfect doorknobs and light switches, handles on the refrigerator and cabinet doors in the kitchen—any place that many people would touch frequently throughout the day. Disposable disinfectant wipes make this an easy step.

6. Get enough sleep. During sleep, your body's immune system goes into high gear to protect you from illness. Lack of sleep can reduce immune functioning making you susceptible to sickness. The average adult needs 8 hours of sleep each night and a school-aged child needs 9-10.

7. Drink more water. Proper hydration is essential during this season when you consider the amount of time we spend in the dry air present inside our homes and workplaces. Water flushes your system, washing out toxins and germs. A typical, healthy adult needs eight 8-ounce glasses of fluids each day. How can you tell if you're getting enough liquid? If the color of your urine runs close to clear, you're getting enough. If it's deep yellow, you need more fluids.

8. Exercise. Aerobic exercise speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood; makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood; and makes you sweat once your body heats up. These exercises help increase the body's natural virus-killing cells. Try to maintain a 3-4 day week exercise routine. Consistency is key.

9. Eat healthy. A good rule is to eat 10-15 calories per pound of "desired body weight." If your ideal weight is 170 lbs, then consume 1700-2550 calories a day (1700 for sedentary individuals and 2550 for extremely active types.) Eat a variety of fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads and cereals (the less processing, the better), healthy proteins (a variety of lean beef, poultry, and fish), and healthy fat such as olive oil. Be sure not to overindulge in sugary and starchy foods as they weaken immune function.

10. Supplement. Fill the gap between your diet and your body's nutritional needs by using naturally derived, potent nutritional supplements. Adequate fiber is necessary for proper elimination and to keep immune function strong. Antioxidants and phytonutrients are also a plus during cold and flu season. Proper mineral and vitamin balance in the body assures you that all of your body systems are functioning optimally. Click here for more information on supplements.

11. Get fresh air. A regular dose of fresh air is important, especially in cold weather when central heating dries you out and makes your body more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses. Also, during cold weather more people stay indoors, which means more germs are circulating in crowded, dry rooms.

12. Don't smoke. Statistics show that heavy smokers get more severe colds and more frequent ones. Even being around smoke profoundly zaps the immune system. Smoke dries out your nasal passages and paralyzes cilia, the delicate hairs that line the mucous membranes in your nose and lungs, and with their wavy movements, sweep cold and flu viruses out of the nasal passages. Experts contend that one cigarette can paralyze cilia for as long as 30 to 40 minutes.

13. Limit alcohol intake. Heavy alcohol use destroys the liver—the body's primary filtering system—which means that germs of all kinds won't leave your body as fast. The result is that heavier drinkers are more prone to initial infections as well as secondary complications. Alcohol also dehydrates the body—it actually takes more fluids from your systemthan it puts in.

14. Relax. If you can teach yourself to relax, you can activate your immune system on demand. There's evidence that when you put your relaxation skills into action, yourinterleukins—leaders in the immune system response against cold and flu viruses—increase in the bloodstream.

15. Take a sauna. Researchers aren't clear about the exact role saunas play in prevention, but one German study found that people who steamed twice a week got half as many colds as those who didn't. One theory: When you take a sauna you inhale air hotter than 80 degrees, a temperature too hot for cold and flu viruses to survive.

Prepare Against the Cold and Flu Season!
The Best Offense is a Strong Defense
Immunizen™ helps promote a healthy immune system effectively and naturally.

Do you know that awful achy feeling when every muscle and bone in your body just hurts? You can't sleep, you have no appetite--and you certainly can't afford to be under the weather even for just a few days.

Cold and flu season is just around the corner and there's no better time to protect yourself than right now with a strong immune system!

Nutrition plays a key role in maintaining our immune defenses, so Unicity has developed Immunizen, a cutting-edge supplement designed to fortify the body's natural resistance.*

To help support the immune system through supplementation, Immunizen contains cutting-edge ingredients that provide a food source in the intestinal tract for "friendly" bacteria crucial to immune function and support the body's immune cells—especially macrophages—in digesting foreign material in the bloodstream.

Immunizen's patented form of Intact® colostrum and other ingredients supply key immunoglobulins, antibodies, inhibitors, protein compounds, growth factors, and enzymes. The health benefits of Immunizen include protecting the body with antioxidants and helping the body make better use of iron.*

Click here for more on the science behind Immunizen.

Order your Immunizen today by calling 1-800-UNICITY.

Unicity Launches Four Reformulated and Improved Women’s Products
Improved to support healthy hormonal balance and function.

Unicity announces the launch of four natural remedies designed to support healthy hormonal function in order to let women regain their bodies’ natural balance without potentially dangerous side effects.

The severity of hormonal problems may increase with age, but it is not aging that is the cause of hormonal imbalance. Female hormonal health is not just related to menstruation and menopause—it’s a matter of lifelong well-being—including diet, exercise, stress factors, genetic influences, and more.

Unicity has developed a better, safer way:

Hormonal needs change over time. You may need regular use of one of these products, a blend of two, or after a while, need to change to another of the products.

Dr. Peter Verdegem, Unicity Chief Science Officer, and Lori Finlay Hamilton, Unicity Medical Advisory Board member and board certified Adult Nurse Practitioner, are conducting a series of conference calls discussing women’s hormonal issues and explaining the needs and uses of each of these products. for more information.

Happy Birthday Framingham Heart Study—
60 Years Later, the Framingham Heart Study Beats On

Sixty Years ago, Americans smoked, drank, and ate too much of the wrong things—then died of heart disease and stroke at higher and higher rates. The town of Framingham, Massachusetts turned things around with the help of researchers backed by the National Institutes of Health.

The Framingham Heart Study exceeded expectations and changed the way many Americans live. The study began in 1948, when 5,000 Framingham residents volunteered to let researchers study their lifestyles and track their health histories over the coming years.

In time, Framingham researchers had invented the term "risk factors" to describe the links they found between cardiovascular disease and smoking, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol. These risk factors eventually became household words, and since the mid-1960s the death rate from cardiovascular disease has declined more than 60 percent.

The study is still going strong, entering its 60th year and taking on its third generation of participants. More than 14,000 Framingham-area residents have taken part, with about 9,000 participating now.

Framingham Findings Support Clinical Studies of Bios Life
Bios Life is the only natural, safe, and clinically-proven product of its type to effectively combat cardiovascular disease by addressing the leading cause of heart attacks—high cholesterol.