Will getting sick easily from being infected with the "cold air" of a funeral?

Many people avoid going to funerals when their bodies are weak, especially young children, the elderly, and pregnant women, for fear of catching the cold air from the dead and getting sick. However, many people also consider this superstitious and not trustworthy. So what is the truth of this story?

Being infected with the cold air of a dead person is a very scary thing for the people because it is believed to be the cause of illness.

Should we believe in the coincidence of the hour or day of death? Is there any way or medicine to neutralize the smell of death? Are people with weak spirits more likely to get sick after attending a funeral? The above questions stem from the anxiety of the living, due to believing in the consequences of not abstaining or thinking " abstinence is better than cure ".

Up to now, in many rural areas and even in cities, many people avoid visiting funerals because they are afraid of the "cold air" in the house of the deceased. Many people believe that the cold air is the cause of illness.

According to specialist doctor II Nguyen Xuan Huong - former head of the Oncology Department of Can Tho Central General Hospital - there are many different types of funerals . There are people who die young, people who die old, people who die without any disease in general and people who die from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, AIDS... So depending on the cause of death, people have their own regulations when burying to protect against the spread of disease. People who die after 6 hours will have "cold breath".

According to medical definition, true death is a state of cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest and brain death, where bodily functions cease and do not recover, energy is no longer produced and the body temperature drops. When true death occurs, the oxidation process ends and the body begins to change due to decomposition. There are two stages that occur:

Early changes: Lasts 8 - 10 hours after actual death. At the same time as the external stiffness of the corpse, inside the intestines, due to the lack of protective factors, bacteria and parasites will multiply rapidly, causing tissue decomposition and putrefaction, the abdomen will swell, and the corpse will begin to smell.

Late transformation : After 10 hours, the bacteria ferment and create gas, causing the whole body to swell, the face to deform, internal organs to rot, and rotten fluid to flow from natural holes...

That is the process of a normal body dying due to old age . If death is due to an accident, infection, or death in war conditions..., the decomposition time will be sooner, greatly affecting the living environment if the treatment and burial are slow. Thus, in the case of death due to old age, the notion that some people must stay away because of "overlapping" ages is just superstition, but in the case of death due to illness , especially infection... then the quick burial, asking some people with weak resistance to stay away has a scientific basis.

Children and people with chronic diseases such as rheumatism, high blood pressure... are easily affected because their immune systems are not strong at this time.

Folklore has always been afraid of the cold air in the house of a newly deceased person, this phenomenon is real. The phenomenon of getting sick due to cold air is also common, especially for people with rheumatism, high blood pressure... In fact, "cold air" is a sign of an infected environment spread by the corpse . To prevent disease, doctors often advise people with weak resistance such as the elderly, children, pregnant women, sick people or people with chronic diseases... to avoid going to funerals.

Some places have a charcoal stove burning grapefruit peel and soapberry fruit at the entrance to eliminate bad air. In terms of properties, the heat of the charcoal and the smell of grapefruit and soapberry smoke can help sterilize the environment, helping to stabilize the body temperature of funeral attendees, thus reducing the possibility of infection. Many people also often chew raw ginger, drink garlic wine, and loquat leaf water... before and after attending a funeral. This method is also good for health because these foods have many medicinal properties that increase the body's resistance.

The truth about cancer patients avoiding funerals

Funerals or funerals are traditional customs of our people to express condolences and remembrance of people for the deceased.

Because of such important meaning, most people often try to arrange to attend funerals. Among those people, there are no exceptions, including cancer patients.

Most cancer patients share the same thought that they should avoid attending funerals because this will reduce the amount of time the cancer patient can live.

According to medical experts, up to now there is no scientific evidence to prove that attending funerals makes cancer patients' illness worse.

According to experts, the reason why people's illnesses get worse after attending funerals may be because the sadness and grief of those at the funeral directly affects the psychology of the sick people.

This influence has a direct impact on the patient's emotions and mood and makes them have negative thoughts. For example, they can imagine the day they leave this world, they worry about their children and how their family will live after they are gone.

It is these negative emotions that make their health increasingly weaker, cancer cells have the opportunity to develop and metastasize strongly and make the patient panic when realizing that after attending the funeral and seeing the level of illness is becoming more and more complicated.

Furthermore, the fact that cancer cells or tumors grow rapidly after attending a funeral may be a coincidence. This is what makes people mistakenly believe that attending a funeral makes their illness worse.

If a cancer patient has stable health and a strong spirit, they can still attend funerals. On the contrary, if they have unstable mental health and are still weak and have not recovered, they should also limit attending funerals.