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Southern Cross Health Features

Welcome to our online health and healthy lifestyle magazine. This information is necessarily of a general nature. You should always seek specific medical advice for treatment appropriate to you.

Chicken soup benefits revealed

Chicken soup may provide soothing relief for a cold. But it’s the friend who brings it to you who may help ward off the virus.

At a National Institute of Health Office of Behavioural and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) seminar, Dr Sheldon Cohen, professor of psychology at CarnegieMellonUniversity, shared his findings that psychological and social factors play an important role in determining our resistance to upper-respiratory illness.

Dr Cohen has been studying the effects of social support on immunity to infectious disease for 10 years.

And still on colds, an issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise details the results of studies which have found that regular exercise (ranging from 30 minutes of brisk walks, lawn mowing or other moderate activity on most days of the week) seems effective in reducing your chances of catching a cold.