1. Zinc. The mineral zinc, available in throat lozenges, nasal sprays, and gels, are said to work by blocking the assembly of proteins used a cold virus to reproduce.
Despite all the claims about zinc for treatment of a cold, scientific studies are minimal. It’s said that only 14 published studies that studied zinc the scientific way, with both placebo and treatment groups. They say zinc throat lozenges, have no effect. One well-designed study reported a positive effect on treating a cold with zinc nasal gel. But the study results have not yet been duplicated.
2. Vitamin C. For many years, believers in vitamin C have said taking this vitamin supplement can stop a cold in its tracks. The belief is partially triggered by lab studies that find vitamin C affects resistance to virus in animal studies.
But in humans? Scientists disagree on this slightly but lean toward the negative. Some say vitamin C has not been proven to decrease the duration of a cold. One 2007 study showed that if vitamin C is taken after a cold begins, it doesn’t decrease the cold or make it less severe. But when it is taken daily as a preventive treatment, not just after that first cough, it can very slightly decrease cold duration, by about 8% in adults and by about 14% in children.
Very highly fit people, marathon runners, for instance, might cut their risk of a cold in half by taking the vitamin, the study also showed.
But Dr. Gwaltney does not agree. The extensive evidence and the well-done studies prove that vitamin C does not keep us from getting colds, says Gwaltney. It might have some mild effect on treating colds.
3. Echinacea. The herbal supplement echinacea, like Vitamin C, sparks controversy among cold experts. Advocates say it’s an immune builder with antiviral properties and other benefits, so it’s good at preventing colds. However, two recent studies on the natural remedy have yielded conflicting conclusions. In one 2007 study, University of Connecticut researchers concluded that echinacea lessens the odds of developing a cold by 58% and reduces its duration by 1.4 days. But a previous study, conducted by Gwaltney’s colleagues at the University of Virginia and published in 2005 in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed no benefit from the herb in either reducing the severity of a cold infection or preventing a cold.
Echinacea drew a “no” vote from our three experts — Gwaltney, Blandino, and Owen Hendley, MD, professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at the University of Virginia, Charlottesvile.
4. Chicken Soup. Advocates of hot chicken soup, forever as a cold treatment, say it could help soothe inflammation that can make the symptoms worse.
The issue with proving scientifically that chicken soup is actually a treatment, says Gwaltney, is discovering a legitimate placebo food to research against it in a scientific way. We were contacted by a soup company to do a study on chicken soup, he explains. We thought we could use another hot liquid for placebo, he says. But it’s got to look, smell, and taste [like chicken soup]. They didn’t find anything that did the job. Gwaltney calls chicken soup “a waste of time.”
That’s despite the well-publicized report published in 2000 in which researchers reported that chicken soup, which they studied in the laboratory, may have an anti-inflammatory effect on easing symptoms of upper respiratory infections. But the report doesn’t prove chicken soup does anything for cold symptoms, Gwaltney says, because it didn’t include a test of people nor include a placebo for comparison.
Even though chicken soup may not actually fight a cold, it can help to prevent dehydration that can happen when you have a cold or the the everyday flu.
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