Echinacea For Colds: Does It Really Work?

Does echinacea, the popular natural cold remedy, really work?

It depends on what you mean by a??work.a????Results [recently] reported in??the??Annals of Internal Medicine found that echinacea??may reduce the length of a week-long cold by 7 to 10 hours and make symptoms a little less onerous. That cana??t be characterized as a major??effect, so many??people??may??figure that the trouble and expense of echinacea just??isna??t worth it (fortunately,??side effects from echinacea dona??t seem to be much of an issue.)

But others??may decide that some benefit is better than none, and these results??do fit??with others that have left the door slightly ajar for echinacea having some effect as a cold remedy — a modest effect, but an effect, nonetheless.

A summary for patients published by the Annals summed up the situation??nicely:

People who take echinacea to treat colds may experience a decrease in the length and severity of their cold symptoms but to such a small degree that they may not care about the difference. Although many studies of echinacea have been performed, researchers still disagree about its benefits in treating the common cold. This study is unlikely to change minds about whether to take this remedy.

Have you tried echinacea as a cold remedy? Has it worked???How do??research??findings, pro and con, affect your opinion of so-called alternative medicines?

Many of the echinacea studies, especially early on, were sponsored by companies making or selling the product. This study was supported by a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which is part of??the National Institutes of Health.

- Peter Wehrwein, Editor, Harvard Health Letter

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