Echinacea Helps protect us from colds
Categories:
US researchers who reviewed over a dozen studies on the effect of echinacea have concluded that the popular herbal remedy reduces a person's chance of catching a cold by 58 per cent. And they found that it also cuts the duration of a cold by an average of 1.4 days.
The study is published in the July edition of The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The researchers were led by Dr Craig Coleman from the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, Hartford Hospital, Connecticut.
Echinacea is one of the most popular and frequently used herbal remedies but scientific and medical opinion about its effect on the common cold is controversial.
Coleman and colleagues decided to review the current literature using an approach called a "meta-analysis" which pools the results of previous trials and examines them using a rigorous set of statistical methods. Their analyses reviewed 14 trials that studied the effect of echinacea on prevention and treatment of the common cold.
Natural Health and Wholistic Wellness Resources in Raleigh NCCreated Thursday, July 12, 2007 by T.Smith, M.S.
Edited on: Thursday, July 12, 2007 10:21 AM