Echinacea and colds.

[ski diva]

If you're like me and HATE colds (who doesn't, especially when they interfere with fun stuff like skiing?), a new study says that echinacea may not only help reduce the symptoms of a cold but may help prevent infection with some cold viruses.

The study found that people who took echinacea had a 58 percent lower risk of catching a cold, according to the researchers, who didn't study the herb's effects directly but looked at the results of 14 studies in an approach called a meta-analysis.

This is different from a study in 2005, where they only looked at rhinovirus. The problem is there are more than 200 kinds of viruses that cause colds. It also appeared as if echinacea reduced the duration of a cold by 1.4 days on average.

 

[RachelV]

You know, I never used to buy into any of that herbal stuff, but my pharmacist mother-in-law swears by echinacea. The last 3 or 4 times I've felt a cold coming on I've taken echinacea and tons of vitamin C drops, and they've never turned into full-fledged colds. I'm sure I've jinxed myself now, but I think I'm an echinacea convert.

 

[altagirl]

Garlic helps too. My mom used to do that and I thought she was nuts, but it's like a natural... germ killer. She'd make toast with chopped up raw garlic, olive oil and parsley mixed in the food processor - it's brutally strong and gives you fierce garlic breath, but you know what? Whenever I eat that after feeling a cold coming on, I've never actually gotten sick. And I figure garlic breath may be a turn-off, but runny noses and coughing all over the place are certainly worse!!

I also discovered that when I cut wheat out of my diet - I don't get sick either. My husband had the flu 3 or 4 times this winter and I never got it once - and during that time I was vigilant about eating healthy and not eating wheat.

Come to think about it - you know in that summertime accomplishments thread where we were discussing summer vs. winter weight loss, I wonder if it isn't that I consciously make good food choices in winter to not get sick, whereas in summer, where I rarely see a sick person, I just eat more junk? Hmmm...

 

[SnowHot]

Altagirl, there is a reason that grandma's chicken soup was always a cold remedy. She used to use lotsa garlic!:D I like your mom's idea with the raw garlic on toast.

I'm a bit of a natural remedy guru, and have done a ton of research on foods and how they effect your body. Echinacia is great for your bodies natural immune system. Garlic is natures antibiotic. Charcoal will absorb impurities and help you flush them out of your system, Vitamin A is good for lung health and circulatory system.

Sugar, which is my downfall in the summer because of my love of icecream, uses up the Vitamin B in your system to recover from the high glucose. If you have a tendency for a sweet tooth, take vitamin B to replace that which your body uses up.

And Always Drink lots of water!