Clinical Researches

Not yet, anyway. Back in 2010, microbiologists discovered that, contrary to what they had previously concluded, the body’s natural defenses could actually kill a cold virus. However, it may be a few years before any significant new treatment for the not-so-dread, yet often surprisingly debilitating and always annoying ailment, will be widely available. What to do in the meantime? While colds can’t be cured, there are some steps you can take to make them less nasty.

1. Don’t run to the doctor right away. We know some of you find the mere sight of medical uniforms highly reassuring, but the fact of the matter is that, for an ordinary cold with ordinary symptoms, going to the doctor’s office can be an enormous waste of everyone’s money, time, and energy. Some folks persist in the entirely false belief that antibiotics can help a cold or flu. They can’t and do vastly more harm than good; don’t even ask. If symptoms persist past a week or two, you may then want to consider a visit, however. Doctors do have access to somewhat stronger drugs and you may want to check to see if you’re cold symptoms have grown worse, it’s possible they may has morphed into an infection like bronchitis.

2. Try zinc. This is controversial advice but there is some preliminary evidence that this commonly found mineral can significantly reduce the strength and duration of cold symptoms if taken early on the process of the cold. There are some fairly expensive zinc inhaler products on the market, but ordinary zinc supplement tablets are enormously cheaper. When we’re starting to feel a bit like a cold might be coming on, we simply take a zinc tablet or two per day with meals and it seems to seriously remove the bite from a cold, though that’s obviously not a scientific recommendation. If it’s the placebo effect, it’s a pretty effective effect.

3. Vaporizers and chicken soup…with Tabasco. Dry, deep, chesty coughs can be really painful and unpleasant. Sleeping with a vaporizer on moistens the membranes and seems to move the phlegm upward. Mom’s chicken soup is another ancient remedy and strong, hot spices found in hot sauces are a natural expectorant. Though we’re big believers in “Jewish penicillin,” we think that both your nana and the people in the medical uniforms would agree that spicy liquids of almost any sort are an outstanding natural expectorant. Herbal teas aren’t bad, either.