Should you feed a cold and starve a fever? Here’s what experts say.

By Lindsey Bever

The Washington Post

Most of us have heard the adage “Feed a cold, starve a fever.”

It comes from an outdated theory that a cold makes your body cooler and eating can help warm it up, and that a fever makes your body warmer and fasting can help cool it down. The premise itself is flawed: While fevers do raise your body temperature, colds don’t make your body cold. You might even get a fever when you have a cold.

As for whether you should eat more or less, in most cases, there’s no convincing evidence that limiting food intake when you’re sick plays a meaningful role in recovery, experts said.

There may be a more accurate approach. “Feed a cold. Feed a fever, too,” said Roy Gulick, the chief of the infectious-disease division at Weill Cornell Medicine and an attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

Experts recommend staying hydrated and eating healthy foods — at least when your stomach will allow it — to support your body when you’re sick. The advice holds true whether you’re dealing with a cold, which is an upper-respiratory infection that can be caused by more than 200 viruses, or a fever, which can be caused by viral and bacterial infections, autoimmune issues and reactions to medications, among other things.

“If you are truly not feeling hungry, you don’t necessarily have to eat more than you feel like eating,” said Geeta Sood, an assistant professor in the infectious-disease division at Johns...