Can hugs keep germs away? Scientists checked!

Observational study. 404 people. 14 consecutive evening phone interviews, then (1-3 weeks later) nasal virus drops and 5-6 days of hotel quarantine; antibodies re-checked ~28 days after exposure.

The scientists only watched the habit. Nobody was told what to do. A clue, not proof.

Who: Healthy adults aged 18-55 (mean 33.5) from the Pittsburgh area, pooled from two viral-challenge studies (2000-2004, n=193; 2007-2011, n=213); 46.3% women, 38.4% non-white; only people with low prior immunity to the challenge virus were eligible

• Few hugsMorearguing: caught the germ more
• Lots of hugsSamearguing didn't matter
• Runny coldSamehugs or no hugs

Nobody was told to hug.

More to know, from our read of the paper:

• Observational for the exposure: nobody was told to hug more; hug frequency was self-reported as a single yes/no question ('did anyone hug you today?') per evening call. Not 'hugs prevent colds' but 'people who got hugged more often were less likely to get infected'
• The outcome that held up was INFECTION (virus found in nose wash or 4-fold antibody rise), and less nasal congestion among the infected. Hugs were NOT linked to getting a clinical cold (OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.48-2.16, p=0.96), and NOT to mucus amount (p=0.83)
• Several results are borderline (hug main effect p=0.04; nasal clearance p=0.044, beta -0.13, explaining ~1.3% of variance). Small effects, wide CIs (OR 0.39, CI 0.16-0.96)
• Lab-style cold model in healthy 18-55-year-olds with low immunity to the virus, given a deliberately high-infection-rate inoculation (78% infected); not real-world colds, not children/older adults
• Archival re-analysis of two older trials (data 2000-2011) combined after the fact

404 healthy adults (18–55) told a caller every evening for 2 weeks whether they had argued with someone and whether anyone hugged them. Then scientists dripped cold germs into their noses and kept them in a hotel. In people with few hugs, more arguing went with catching the germ more often; with lots of hugs, arguing did not seem to matter. Hugs did not change who got a full, runny cold. Nobody was told to hug (an observational study with a viral challenge), so this is a clue, not proof.

We read the abstract and the full text of this paper and checked every number on this page against it (19 facts, checked on 2026-10-03). The study design is named above. Cohort and other observational studies are described as linked, not proven. Found an error? Email theis@onestudyaday.com.