Health Buzz: Echinacea Does Not Cure Colds

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get your facts right! you are supposed to be a reporter!

eva of GA 10:03PM December 21, 2010

it DOES shorten the life of the cold

Eva of GA 10:02PM December 21, 2010

Echinacea doesn’t work to "cure a cold." That isn’t it’s purpose.
Its use is an an immunostimulator...to to support and strengthen a person’s immune system so it can more easily resist infection in the first place.
The focus of this study is, in the end, inaccurate and potentially harmful, as it may turn people away from using a potentially beneficial supplement, Echinacea, by giving them false information about its purpose.

Judith Barr of CT 8:19PM December 21, 2010

Flawed research. Hidden agenda. The original research behind this article does not contain the therapeutic dosage of Echinacea. The active ingredient in echinacea is alkylamides. Each tablet should contain 4.1 mg of alkylamides and a person should take 6 per day, totaling 24.6 mg of alkylamides. Within this study, the group receiving the echinacea only received 2.1 mg of alkylamides x 8 = 16.8 mg in 24 hours. Therapeutic dosage is 24.6 mg in 12 hours. Woops...no wonder it didn't work!
J Augustine

J Augustine of CA 7:59PM December 21, 2010

I know it works and I will continue using it. Invariably if you take it at the first sign of symptoms and keep taking 2 pills along with 2 ester-c pills every 4 hours, it ALLLWAYS knocks my cold/flu out MUCH faster than my body ever could get rid of it independently!.
I SWEAR BY IT!

Dan Bouchard of VA 7:25PM December 21, 2010

"Vitamin" D prevents colds and flu infections. Our most powerful disease fighting steroid hormone, vitamin D is a powerful antiviral/antibiotic and controls the immune system in humans. If you are typically low in circulating vitamin D this time of year you'll likely catch the flu or a cold.
The real issue is what PREVENTS colds and flu, not what cures them.
Unless you are a drug company or a doctor who worries about running out of patients.
Who the h*** wants to be cured of anything if they could prevent it completely?
Otherwise 99% of the physicians reading this will understand the following and put it into practice:
Vitamin D supplementation to 50-80 ng/ml, 25 OH, will provide virtual immunity from colds and flu. At the very least, significantly fewer viral infections of this category than those with typically low vitamin D levels in winter.
The "cold and flu" season was actually low vitamin D season all along.
EVERYONE who maintains vitamin D health i.e. 50-80 ng/ml, circulating levels, year round and for life, will confirm instantly fewer or zero colds/flu since achieving repletion.
Just ask them?
I have been cold and flu free for 60 months which exactly corresponds to initial repletion.
Here is recent link to a study of Japanese school children supplementing a relatively meaningless amount of vitamin D daily- 1200 i.u., and catching 800% less flu than those on placebo:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7061778.ece
No debate, no discussion, end of story.

Chris Menard of MA 6:49PM December 21, 2010

What the hell? I get so tired of all the upfront studies and years later the supplement or item doesnt even help. I bout me a bottle now do i get a refund? This is crazy.

l of CA 3:00PM December 21, 2010

Who pays for these surveys, or should I say which drug company. And the frenzied media picks up the buzz and away they go. I never read where echinacea ever cured anything, only that it stimulated the immune system to shorten the length of the cold. Old herbal remedies generally do not cure, but rather are efficacious in slowing down a problem.
I have taken echinacea for years at the first sign of a cold and it has never cured the common cold, but it has ameliorated my symptoms. Much better than some "tried and true medicine" produced by Big Drug.

D Colley of OH 2:54PM December 21, 2010