How to Stop a Cold

Thank you for sharing interesting

article. Even pepper powder, turmeric powder mixed with milk helps to protect from cold.

Respectfully, If you don't know

about Chinese herbal medicines to stop colds, you need to. Google 'yin chiao' and 'gan mao ling' or 'zong gan ling'. These remedies are amazing - far beyond anything you mentioned in your article.

very informative article. thank

you very much.

While I find articles like this

one can be helpful in some ways, they often have two glaring problems, both of which I found in this article. 1) They give important information but they report it in a generalized manner which can be misleading and then don't provide links so people can easily check the source. For example, at the bottom of page two of this article, the author states that: "In June 2009, the FDA issued an advisory regarding some zinc products, so be careful about using them." Where is the link to this advisory? This statement is so general that many people will stop using all zinc products, which is not what the advisory says. Zinc lozenges dissolved under the tongue have been scientifically found to reduce the length of a cold. The advisory actually says "FDA is issuing this advisory to alert consumers about the risk of permanently losing their sense of smell, known as anosmia, from zinc-containing cold remedies administered into the nose. This advisory DOES NOT CONCERN zinc tablets taken orally and LOZENGES TAKEN BY MOUTH." [emphasis added] You can read the advisory yourself here: 2) This article mostly regurgitates what other current articles are saying, all of which depend too much on older government approved information, completely missing newer scientifically determined information that is critical but under-reported. For example, this article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7061778.ece> cites a study done by Japanese scientists, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition saying that "the anti-viral drugs zanamivir and oseltamivir reduce risk of flu infection by 8 per cent in children who have been exposed to infection, compared with a 50 PER CENT OR GREATER REDUCTION WITH VITAMIN D" [emphasis added]. Since colds and flus are both caused by repiratory viruses, much of the helpful information for one can be used for the other. The article cited in the previous paragraph also explains that "Vitamin D activates the innate immune system, enabling the body to produce several proteins such as defensin and cathelicidin which trigger cell activity and disable viruses." There are numerous other studies that support the need for vitamin D supplementation, but the FDA has so far refused to even mention it anywhere on its web sites, including www.flu.gov.. This article talks about this lack of reporting by the FDA and explains how vitamin D deficiency is implicated in many, many diseases, and gives multiple links to studies and other background information. One good source is the Vitamin D CoSuncil, http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/. If caring.com truly wants to help its readers, they will please take the time to do their research and get their reporting right.

For me, Staving off a cold is helpful

by ingesting 3000m Vitamin C for at least a week then backing off the Vitamin to 1000m daily everyday of your life. I take great care of my immune system by daily vitamins and extra during the cold season. Also the same old adage is you must exercise to stay healthy. Walk walk and walk ......to the market, park far away from the doors.

This whole article was helpful.

Some of the information I was taught when I was younger but had forgotten, so it was like a refresher course in many ways. (I always wondered why mom made us gargle with warm, salty, water). Thank You very much for making this information available.

It would actually be more helpful

if you had a printer friendly version where the entire article was available on one page!!!!