Every year, millions of people world-wide get sick with the flu (influenza) and cold. For most of us, the fever, exhaustion, and aches and pains of the flu can be debilitating for a week or two, but for the elderly and those with compromised immune systems the flu can be much more serious. An estimated 100,000 hospitalizations and about 20,000 deaths occur each year from the flu or its complications in the US alone. On top of that, an average American adult suffers two to three colds a year; the average young child has as many as nine. The common cold, also known as a viral upper respiratory tract infection, is a contagious illness that can be caused by a number of different types of viruses. Because of the great number of viruses that can cause a cold, the body never builds up resistance against all of them. Every year, millions of people use over-the-counter to relieve nasal stuffiness and congestion, sneezing, runny noses, sore throat, and cough.

Symptoms of a common cold flu include nasal stuffiness and drainage, sore throat, hoarseness, cough, and perhaps a fever and headache. Many people with a cold feel tired and achy. These symptoms typically last from 3-10 days. Cold and flu-like symptoms can sometimes mimic more serious illnesses like strep throat, measles, and chickenpox. Allergies, too, can resemble colds with their runny noses, sneezing, and general miserable feeling.

The common cold is spread mostly by hand-to-hand contact. For example, a person with a cold blows or touches his or her nose and then touches someone else who then becomes infected with the virus. Additionally, the cold virus can live on objects such as pens, books, and coffee cups for several hours and can be acquired from such objects. While common sense would suggest that coughing and sneezing spread the common cold, these are actually very poor mechanisms for spreading a cold. The causes of 30 to 50 percent of adult colds remain unidentified. The same viruses that produce colds in adults appear to cause colds in children. The relative importance of various viruses in pediatric colds is unclear because of the difficulty in isolating the precise cause of symptoms in studies of children with colds.

Suggestion: If you have a fever of more than 100 degrees in addition to symptoms such as sore throat, nasty cough, and congestion, it's most likely the flu, says the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Colds rarely produce fevers.
Similarly, a headache usually signals the flu, as do extreme exhaustion and body aches and pains.
Sneezing and a stuffy nose, on the other hand, are more often signs of a cold, the NIH says.

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