Parents less likely to catch colds and flu

CHILDREN bring many things to their parents' lives: happiness, sleepless nights... and viruses. But although parents do catch infections from their kids, it seems parents are also more resistant to colds and flu.

Sheldon Cohen and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reviewed three studies in which researchers put either a flu virus or a rhinovirus, which causes colds, into people's noses, then tracked who fell ill. Cohen's team found that parents were only 48 per cent as likely to develop an infection as people with no kids.

The more children there were in the family, the more parents were protected against illness. But the kids did not need to be present: parents whose children had already left home were only 27 per cent as likely as the childless adults to get sick (Psychosomatic Medicine, DOI: 10.1097/psy.0b013e31825941ff).

Levels of antibody to the viruses used were the same in the parents as in the childless subjects. So what could explain the results? Cohen's team speculates that parenthood brings happiness and reduces stress levels, which can boost the immune system.

That, or parents just don't have time to get sick - so they don't.

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