“Your upper airways are like a car wash,” he explains, “and the air that comes into your upper airways is like a car.” When the car wash is working properly, the vast majority of the little bits and pieces in the air you breathe gets washed away. “If you stay well hydrated, your upper airways will capture pathogens all the time, and they move them—within twenty minutes or an hour—out into your gut and you swallow… and they’re eliminated that way,” Edwards said. “But when you’re dehydrated, there’s no water in the car wash.” And with the car wash broken, things like virus particles get past the
...more
