More cold supplement woo?

[ponderingturtle]

Mr.Blue and Blue2 have been fighting off (not very well) colds since New Year's (and may the FSM spill his noodly wrath on the friend who came over KNOWING she was sick). I had it to, and did the sure-fire cure - one hot bath followed by a hot toddy and sleep 10 hours (rather than my usual 6) for three nights. Because, its a viral infection and you give your system a chance to kick it and it will. Mr.Blue works and worries, and you try to nail a 7-yr-old into bed....

Anyways, yesterday Mr.Blue came back from the market with a box of 'Airborne' which is supposed to (let's put it to music, shall we?) increase your ability to fight off infections and get rid of infections you have, yada yada. And the pharmacist (!) said it works. I looked at the back, and its just a mega-dose of Vitamin C and some zinc and a few other thises and thats. I suggested returning the box, as we have vitamins aplenty at the house. No, no, a teacher invented it, so it HAS to work. Mr.Blue took it - which involves dissolving the pill in hot water - and has felt miserable ever since. And still has a cold.

Guess I should have figured out how to use the rant box....

They specificaly covered Airborn this morning on NPR. And said that the only thing that might possibly work in it is Zinc, which has had very contradictory studies useing similar methodology. The rest of its ingreedients have been shown to be ineffective.

 

[ponderingturtle]

That is interesting. I once used zinc lozenges (you know, as a test) and found them surprisingly effective, quite to my surprise. Despite my skepticism, I still use them whenever I get a really nasty cold because my personal anecdotal evidence was that they worked.

And people say the same thing about Echinatia, and it was shown to be ineffective.

 

[Zygar]

And people say the same thing about Echinatia, and it was shown to be ineffective.

Echinacea. But yeah, some skeptic, eh? I really should do some real research on the zinc. But I just figured that it's all woo, so I might as well use the one that I think is working.

 

[Psi Baba]

That is interesting. I once used zinc lozenges (you know, as a test) and found them surprisingly effective, quite to my surprise. Despite my skepticism, I still use them whenever I get a really nasty cold because my personal anecdotal evidence was that they worked.

I read some of the study literature on zinc and the idea, as ChristineR alluded to, is that the zinc compound supposedly fills up most the areas in the sinuses where the virus tends to lodge and multiply, the logic being that if you crowd out the virus it doesn't multiply as well as it normally would and dies off a bit sooner. It's effectiveness is often marginal, and it must be used at the onset of the cold (but a lot of people don't realize they have a cold until it's well under way), so the idea behind zinc is at least sensible and not the usual "immune-system boosting" woo. The problem is that now manufacturers are just throwing zinc into ingested remedies (like ColdMD and Airborne), which is useless as it must be applied directly to the mucous membrane (such as via a lozenge). The problem for lozenge-makers is in trying to make them palatable as it was found that sweeteners tend to nullify the effects of the zinc. Oops. So in other words, the worst-tasting ones are probably the most effective ones.