Your body’s immunity may become weak if you practice poor lifestyle habits. This may make you a great risk for acquiring the flu. Furthermore, the likelihood of catching the flu may rise if any of your coworkers or family members have the flu or if you come into contact with pathogen-laden objects like countertops, computed keyboard and mouse, phone receiver or doorknobs that they have touched.
Changing your lifestyle habits like performing regular exercise, doing stress management, getting adequate sleep and eating a balanced diet may strengthen immune function and may greatly lessen your chance of catching the flu.
Toddlers and babies are very prone to come down with flu-related complications. As babies and young children grow, their bodies are constantly battling with all kinds of bacteria and viruses as their immune systems develop. The truth is it is perfectly normal for a young child to catch on the average about 6 to 8 cold infections each year as well as croup, acute bronchitis, sinusitis and ear infections. A young child with a weak immune system or one who gets sick frequently has a higher risk than other children to catch the flu virus and develop complications.
Seniors (65 years and older) are also a high risk group in acquiring flu-related complications. This is reflected in the CDC’s statistics that show people 65 years old and above comprising about 60% of flu-connected hospitalizations and about 90% of flu-related mortalities. As people get older, their immune system gets weaker and weaker making it easier for the influenza virus to wreak more havoc in them. Seniors are also likely to develop chronic health problems like lung disease, diabetes and heart disease that further exacerbate the risk of flu infection.
Individuals living in cramped living environments like nursing homes or retirement centers are very susceptible of getting sick from the flu virus. Researchers who have studied healthy nursing homes with patients who have antibiotic-resistant bacteria have found that three reasons as to why these types of bacteria have proliferated in those areas. These three reasons included transfer or patients between hospital and nursing home, poor hand-washing rates among nursing home workers and too much use of antibiotics.
The flu virus can be contagious for up to a whole week from the onset of the infection. The virus can be identified for up to a whole day prior to the manifestation of the symptoms. This shows that you can infect others for a full 24 hours before you even exhibit any signs and symptoms of the flu itself. Young infected children can transmit the flu to others through their secretions even after two weeks after they’ve acquired the virus.
Amy-SuiQun Lui is a licensed acupuncturist in Cleveland, OH, and the founder and clinical director of Asian Health Center.
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