This time of year, everywhere you turn, you hear coughing, sneezing and sniffling. The head cold is the most common illness of the season. However, there are various things students can do to stay healthy while gearing up for a new semester.

"As a general rule, the very best way to prevent spread of infection is washing hands with soap and water," said Dr. D. Keith Willmore of BYU's Health Center.

BYU strives to aid disease prevention by making sure every restroom has soap and by providing hand sanitizer at various locations around campus.

Dr. Gene Cole, professor of health sciences, has done extensive research on hand sanitizers and believes the placement of hand sanitizer on campus is an effective way of helping students keep their hands clean and prevent the spread of diseases.

"If it is visible, they are reminded to use it," Cole said.

Cole believes hand sanitizer can sometimes be used in place of hand washing. He said because students are not always able to make it to a bathroom to wash their hands every time they touch a doorknob, handrail or desk, "hand sanitizer in their backpack is a great thing to have."

According to Willmore, upper respiratory diseases, or head colds, are the most common ailment students are coming into the health center for right now. Well-known symptoms include a stuffy or runny nose, sore throat, headaches, and muscle aches.

The treatment for head colds is mostly over the counter. Bryant Redford, a junior from Bakersfield, Calif., did what he could to alleviate his cold.

"I drank water and took medicine to alleviate my symptoms and got as much rest as I could," Redford said.

Willmore said there are things you can do for yourself when you have a cold like drink lots of fluids, keep a vaporizer in your bedroom, and take a decongestant like Claritin-D and Ibuprofen for muscle aches.

The second most common disease among students this time of year is gastroenteritis, a disease infecting the lining of the stomach and intestines. The symptoms include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. If these symptoms last longer than a day, Willmore recommends visiting the health center.

Strep throat is the third most common disease students are visiting the health center for this time of year.

This is manifest by a sore throat, fever, headache, muscle aches, nausea and vomiting. Although not all of these symptoms are always present, some combination of them usually means the person has strep throat.

Willmore also recommends students visit the health center for these symptoms because if they go untreated, strep throat could develop into something worse.

By washing your hands and using hand sanitizer you can increase your chances of staying healthy and beginning the semester on the right foot. However, Cole advises that if you are sick try not to spread it to everyone else: "Of course, if you're really sick, stay home."

Copyright Brigham Young University 29 Jan 2008