Echinacea Does Fight Colds - New Study
A new study has concluded that the popular herbal supplement echinacea does in fact cut the chance of catching a cold by 58 per cent and can even reduce the duration of colds by about a day and a half.
The study, published recently in the British journal The Lancetinfectious Diseases, contradicts a previous major study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year that contended echinacea did not work.
The Lancet study looked at the results of 14 previous clinical trials that investigated echinacea’s effects on the common cold and involved a total of 1,600 patients.
The Nutrition Business Journal estimates echinacea sales in the U.S. totalled $129 million in 2006 despite the fact that no one knows the active ingredient in echinacea. Echinacea is derived from the Purple cone flower which is native to Eastern North America.
