Can hugs protect your body? Scientists studied 404 healthy adults. For 14 days, the adults answered questions every night about hugs and arguments.

Then the scientists put a cold virus in their noses. People who got more hugs had weaker symptoms when they got sick. But this does not prove that hugs stop colds. Feeling supported by others may be important, too.

Can a hug help you fight off a cold? Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University tested whether social support protects the body from stress. First, 404 healthy adults answered a survey about how supported they felt. Then, for 14 days, they were asked by phone every evening about conflicts with others and about hugs.

Next, they were exposed to a cold virus and kept in isolation. People with more conflicts were more likely to get infected, but this risk was weaker among people who felt supported. Hugs seemed to protect people in a similar way.

But the researchers only observed daily life and did not assign hugs, so they could not prove that hugs caused the effect. Among those who got sick, people who received more hugs had milder symptoms.

The stress-buffering hypothesis, studied since the 1980s, holds that feeling supported by others can cushion the harmful effects of stress on health. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University tested this idea in an unusually direct way. They first measured how much social support 404 healthy adults perceived, then conducted nightly telephone interviews for 14 days to record interpersonal conflicts and whether participants had been hugged. Afterwards, participants were deliberately exposed to a common cold virus and monitored in quarantine.

Frequent conflict was associated with a higher risk of infection, but this association was weaker among those who perceived greater support, and hugs accounted for roughly a third of this protective effect. Among infected participants, greater support and more frequent hugs predicted less severe symptoms. A separate brain-imaging study of 16 married women found that holding their husband's hand reduced neural responses to the threat of a mild shock, especially in better marriages.

However, hugging was not randomly assigned, so people who receive many hugs may differ in other ways, such as lifestyle. Both studies used American adults, and attitudes to touch vary across cultures. The findings do not mean that hugs prevent or cure illness.