Nobody wants to get stuck with a
cold, so when you hear that you can take something simple and inexpensive to prevent a week's worth of misery, why not jump at it. Echinacea and zinc are much buzzed-about when it comes to preventing or shortening the duration of colds, but do they really work?
When it comes to zinc, hundreds of studies have been conducted, including
one in 2000, which found that taking zinc lozenges during a cold produced "modest" benefits. A more recent study published by Stanford Medical School analyzed data from 14 previous studies and reported that the effectiveness of using zinc to treat a cold "has yet to be established." Hmm.
Well, what about
echinacea.
Having a cold can really put a damper on your daily life. One of the major symptoms of having a cold is a runny and/or stuffy nose, and believe it or not there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with all that leaky congestion. First off, you don't want to sniffle it back into your head, so you are going to need to blow your nose frequently.
According to Web MD, you don't want to blow your nose too hard because this can cause an earache.
It is the time of sniffles. Cold and flu season is upon us. By some accounts as early as August, and others think there really is no such thing since we can catch a virus anytime of the year.
If you love the outdoors and have someone who loves it equally as much, why not plan an overnight excursion. I know it's February, and it's cold out, but
winter camping is a huge sport. What's so great about it.
