Gardner’s study tested a mouse’s ability to recover from influenza depending on the number of calories consumed.

Some mice consumed a normal amount of food and others were allotted 40 percent fewer calories. While both groups of mice ate less once infected with the virus, the mice eating 40 percent less took longer to recover and were more likely to die in the first few days of infection.

Five to 20 percent of the population gets the flu every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Marketing senior Melissa Powell said she is not surprised at the outcome of Gardner’s study after losing a significant amount of weight last winter while battling influenza.

“I was sick for three weeks and didn’t have an appetite at all,” she said. “I just stopped eating.”

Powell’s restricted diet caused her to feel lethargic and, Gardner said, might have had a large impact on the recovery time from her illness. It turns out the old saying, “Feed a cold, starve a fever” might not be so accurate.

“When you get the flu, you don’t eat,” Gardner said. “It’s difficult to fight infection without any energy. We’re not promoting obesity or eating a ton of food, but if you have the tendency to lose weight during flu season, make sure to maintain your calories to the point where you have a little extra padding.”

Gardner said the idea for the study came about because the influenza vaccine doesn’t protect all populations from the virus as it should. The vaccine tends to work better for younger people than it does for the elderly.

Powell said she is putting off getting a flu shot because of her fear of needles. However, she knows getting vaccinated is in her best interest.

General management sophomore Stefan Ahee is another student included in the 20 percent of Americans who contract the flu each year.

Ahee said he spent three miserable days at home last winter when he had the flu.

“It definitely put me behind in my classes,” he said. “All I wanted to do was sleep.”

Although Ahee is not sure if he lost a significant amount of weight over the course of his illness, he said there is no question as to whether his appetite decreased.

Though Ahee and Powell’s experiences with the virus fit with Gardner’s findings, she was not expecting the conclusion her data yielded.

“People who eat less calories live longer, so we figured eating less calories makes you healthier,” she said. “The first thing I thought when I saw the outcome was that I did something wrong in the experiment, so we repeated it.

“When I saw it again I thought, ‘This is not so surprising when you think about it.’ … It’s not so far-fetched.”