Doubt cast on value of echinacea as cure for colds
New research has cast serious doubt on claims that the herb echinacea can be used to treat the common cold.
US scentists found that taking the alternative remedy has little or no effect on the length and severity of the infectious disease.
Millions of people around the world take the herb to stave off the common cold or treat its symptoms.
However, the study found that patients who took the herb reported recovering from the illness only between seven and ten hours before others who had not taken the herb.
The authors of the report said this period was too short to be important.
Although one of Scotland’s leading herbalists said echinacea could stave off colds if taken before contracting the virus, he said the herb’s reputation as a cure for the cold had been over- exaggerated.
In the report, which was published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the authors wrote: “Illness duration and severity were not statistically significant with echinacea compared with a placebo.
“These results do not support the ability of this dose of the echinacea formulation to substantively change the course of the common cold.”
Researchers studied 719 people aged between 12 and 80 who were suffering from the early symptoms of a cold.
The only beneficial effect of taking echinacea was that the duration of the illness was reduced by a few hours. Echinacea did not reduce the severity of patients’ symptoms.
The researchers also claimed previous studies that appeared to prove the herb could battle the cold were “manufacturer-sponsored and of moderate to poor quality”.
Herbalists still stand by the effectiveness of the herb, but warn that it had been unduly elevated to its position as a cure for colds.
Echinacea does work, they say, but only if taken in conjunction with other herbs.
Keith Robertson, director of education at the Scottish School for Herbal Medicine, said: “If a herbalist wanted to treat the common cold, they would prescribe several other herbs at once, including garlic, before and during times that you are susceptible to catching the cold.
“This is a wonderful herb, but I think it is used in the wrong context by people who see it as a cure.
“The cold is your body telling you to stay in bed.”
Echinacea is a herb naturally found in America. Since it became regarded as a cure for the cold, it has become so popular that wild varieties have been placed under protection in some American states.
A previous study, published in the Lancet in 2007, claimed the herb could cut the chance of catching the cold by more than half.
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