Secrets of the Super-Healthy: How DO They Fend off Colds??

I was talking to my daughter's babysitter the other day, noting that I was headed to the doctor to get my yearly flu shot. She's in her late 50s and announced, proudly, that she'd never gotten a flu shot, ever. And that she rarely gets sick. In fact, she said that she's always been this way; it's not like she was cold-and-flu prone as a younger woman and then as an older woman she's become more resilient. It's simply always been this way for her. (Lucky, huh!?)

But it got me thinking, and then prompted me to dig into a book I'd been sent a while ago called The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick, by Gene Stone. (It goes on sale October 20th.)

Most of the time, doctors explain the fact that older people sometimes get fewer colds on the fact that they've simply lived longer and therefore been exposed to more strains of viruses, therefore building up a wider base of resistance. But for other people, there are habits and practices that may also contribute to their impermeability in the face of all those germs.

In the book, Stone interviews 25 different people who self-report their good health, and gets the skinny on 25 different "secrets"—most of which he even tries himself. There's the person who swears by daily cold showers and the ones who does yoga religiously; there's someone who ingests enough garlic to scare a vampire, to another person who dunks his head in a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water every day...Others credit running, napping or a relentlessly positive attitude for their hale and hearty existences. Stone looks at all these tactics and weaves in the relevant research (if any) that's been done on it.

And while I'm not about to start taking icy baths or eating dirt, the book is fascinating and compelling... and I did add an extra clove of garlic to my stir fry the other night! Perhaps I'll be able to fend off the next wave of germs...or maybe I'll just end up with garlic breath. For advice on how to incorporate six of the most proven cold-prevention strategies, check out this list. And if you're already sniffing and sneezing, get information and help here and here.