Why is it that your nose (or my nose, anyway) starts to run when it’s cold outside? Or even worse, right after I come into a warm building from a snowy day? -Katie Shilton, College senior

“It’s called vasomotor rhinitis,” Oberlin’s Health Service Director, Laura Hieronymus, says. “That is a fancy name for the blood vessels expanding and contracting in response to temperature changes which causes mucous in your nose to be produced.”
Rhinitis is an inflammation of the nose (“rhin” means nose. Think rhinoceros) and can come in three flavors: infectious (colds), allergic and vasomotor. Allergic rhinitis can be seasonal if you’re allergic to pollens, or year-round if dust or molds get to you. Vasomotor rhinitis is considered by some to cover every other case of stuffy or runny noses when colds or allergies can’t account for the symptoms. The blood vessels (hence the “vaso,” meaning vein) in the nose swell up for a variety of reasons including temperature changes, stress or anger and even sensitivity to certain odors.
Sadly, it looks like you’ll just have to keep wiping your nose during the winter. Antihistamines — drugs such as Sudafed that counteract the chemicals your body produces in reaction to bacteria or allergens — won’t do any good since it’s not bacteria or allergens that cause this type of runny nose. "It is annoying but not really considered a health problem," Hieronymus adds.

Does vitamin C really help you get over a cold?

According to Professor of Biology Robin Treichel, who teaches a course on immunology, there is no scientific evidence that vitamin C helps a cold. Lori Morgan Flood, the campus’s director of health education, did confirm that zinc has been shown to reduce both the severity and duration of a cold. And both Treichel and Flood noted that there is some evidence that the herb echinacea may help with recovery.
Taking care of yourself is the best way to prevent a cold or any kind of illness, and that includes eating right, sleeping enough and taking all your vitamins — including C. Of course, we’re college students. So if you find yourself coming down with something, you’ll probably want to pick up some zinc lozenges or echinacea. If you’re running a fever, Student Health is the place to be. And, of course, grandma’s advice is still the best — get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids and eat something nutritious.
One side note: while a fever is the body’s natural way of getting rid of either bacterial or viral infections, it may not be a good idea to simply let it run its course. According to Student Health, a fever of over 101 or 102 degrees Farenheit is actually damaging to your body, even while it kills whatever is making you sick.

If someone was sick, with a cold, let's say, and had a sore throat, wouldn't drinking alcohol improve one's health because it would kill all the nasty bacteria in his or her throat? –Allison Moon, College junior

Back to Ms. Hieronymus for this one: “When you are infected with a virus such as cold or flu it is really a systemic infection, the virus is in the sinuses, the lungs and actually ‘in’ the tissues of the throat. Therefore a quick exposure to alcohol in the throat cannot kill the viruses that are making you sick.”
And here I was planning on seeing if Robitussin goes well with tequila.