Echinacea 'halves risk of catching cold'

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — Echinacea, a medicinal herb that came to prominence thanks to its use by Sioux Indians, can more than halve the risk of catching a cold, a wide-scale study has confirmed.

Taking echinacea supplements can reduce the risk of a cold by 58 percent and may also shorten the duration of a cold almost one and a half days, according to the paper, published on Sunday in the July issue of the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The study is a "meta-analysis" comparing the outcome of 14 published trials using echinacea.

One of the trials combined with echinacea with vitamin C, which showed the two together reduced the incidence of a cold by 86 percent.

The analysis was led by University of Connecticut pharmacist Craig Coleman.

Echinacea...