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Of late, there is a wide choice of snake-oily products. Recycle an old idea, mix a little of this with a little of that, change a remedy slightly, and make new claims. Cold MD is a prime example: they mixed vitamin C and zinc with a "proprietary" mixture of herbs including Astragalus, Ginseng,
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and Echinacea, and they claim it "supports immune function," increases your resistance by 312%, and helps you recover 94% faster. This claim is based on a clinical study of the main ingredient only, shedding doubt on the rationale for including the other ingredients! The packages says it is "not intended to prevent or treat any disease," shedding doubt on the rationale for taking it. There is always a new product of this sort, and when you try to trace the claims, the evidence just fizzles out. A product called Airborne is popular: developed by a school teacher, it's an irrational mixture of ingredients supported by enthusiastic testimonials but by no scientific trials. After Michael Shermer debunked Airborne in his "Skeptic" column in Scientific American, he was contacted by a representative of the company that makes Cold-FX. They essentially said, "Maybe Airborne's cold remedy doesn't really work, but ours really does." Does it? Cold-FX was developed in Canada and was popularized by a hockey commentator. It is a patented mixture of complex sugars derived from American ginseng. Why American ginseng? Only Chinese ginseng, a different species, had been previously thought to possibly have an effect on colds. If I wanted to develop a cold remedy, neither species of ginseng would be my first choice. If I wanted to make money, I might well pick ginseng as a relatively innocuous plant with warm fuzzy associations with folk remedies. I might pick out one of its many ingredients and make a meaningless but patentable change, get my own company to run a couple of preliminary trials and publish them, misrepresent the trials as proving more than they do, and market the product aggressively. Since colds are so unpredictable and often ill-defined, a cold remedy is ideal to confuse people. The Canadian government was confused into letting them advertise it as a cold remedy, but our FDA was far savvier. Shipments were seized at the border. The FDA made them remove the false statements. This resulted in the surreal situation that people are now buying it as a cold
2007
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remedy but nowhere in its advertising or labeling does it say it is for colds. In fact, a disingenuous disclaimer explains that the word "cold" only refers to the cooling properties of the plant! The package says "diet supplement--strengthens the immune system." It also clearly states "not intended to prevent or treat any disease." If you wanted a DVD player, would you buy something that wasn't called a DVD player but only an "entertainment device.. .not intended to play DVDs"? The company's motto is "Trust the Science." What does the science show? Two independent experts, professors of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of BC, took a close look at the company's three most recent trials. They were underwhelmed. Two different studies involved nursing home patients with an average age of 82 (not your typical consumer). The ginseng groups reported just as many respiratory illnesses and symptoms as the control groups. They had to count positive lab cultures for two specific viruses and combine the two studies to find any significant difference: 1%vs 9%. They interpreted this as "reducing the risk of colds by 890/o." That's terribly misleading. Who cares if Cold-FX reduces culture rates by 8% if it doesn't make a whit of difference in how sick people ftel? In the third, larger study, the ginseng group caught 0.68 colds each and the placebo group, 0.93 colds. If you believe this study, Cold-FX apparently can prevent one-quarter of a cold per person-not terribly impressive. This study was published in the October, 2005 issue of the CanadianMedical Association Journal(G. N. Predy, et al., "Efficacy of an Extract of North American Ginseng Containing poly-furanosylpyranosyl-saccharides for Preventing Upper Respiratory Tract Infections: A Randomized Controlled Trial."), accompanied by a critical article urging caution. In addition to the problems pointed out there, I noticed something else very strange. Untreated cold symptoms can last
2-14 days and typically resolve in a week. In this study, the placebo group averaged 16.5 days of symptoms (for less than one cold). There is something drastically wrong here. This unexplained anomaly sheds doubt on the study's conclusions. You could just as well conclude that the ginseng didn't shorten colds, but the placebo prolonged them! These amount to preliminary studies, not the kind of research results that can guide clinical recommendations; and even in the most favorable interpretation, the effect was small. When a real breakthrough in cold prevention or treatment comes along, you won't learn about it in product advertisements; it will be all over the media as one of the biggest news stories of the year. While we're waiting, what should we do? Wear galoshes? Avoid getting chilled? Won't help. We catch more colds in the winter not because it is colder, but because we spend more time indoors with other people. The virus is spread through airborne droplets and also "handed off' by touching things like doorknobs and pens. The virus can be picked up by another person hours later and transferred to the nose or even to the conjunctiva when you unthinkingly rub your eyes. Howard Hughes tried a simple, effective approach--complete isolation from germ-carrying humans. That works, but if you don't want to be a hermit or the boy in the bubble, there are simple, practical ways to limit your exposure to the cold virus: avoid sick people, and don't touch your mouth, nose or eyes without first washing your hands. You'll eventually catch a cold anyway. When you do, you can either treat it or save your money. Without treatment, a cold lasts about a week; with treatment it will be gone in about seven days. Try this: reconceptualize your situation as good luck rather than bad-a chance for a mini-vacation. Stay home, veg out, pamper yourself, and catch up on your sleep. That may be "cold comfort" but it won't waste your "cold" hard cash. V
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