In a recent study out of Cardiff, Wales, researchers validated generations of grandmothers and mothers who warned youngsters to stay warm or they’d catch a cold. Until now, scientific research has found no link between chilled bodies and viral infections.

At Cardiff University’s Common Cold Centre, 90 volunteers immersed their feet in bowls of ice and cold water; ninety others sat with their feet in empty bowls. Almost one-third, or 29 percent, of the “chilled” volunteers developed cold symptoms, compared to only nine percent of the “unchilled” volunteers.

Researchers explain that becoming chilled constricts blood vessels in the nose, shutting off the warm blood that supplies infection-fighting white cells.

For more information, visit www.cnn.com or www.cardiff.ac.uk.