Originally published December 1 2005
Britons prepare for record winter with homemade cold remedies
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Vitamin C, hot toddies, garlic and ginseng are among the homemade cold therapies used by Britons to fight off colds.
If you haven't caught a cold already, chances are you will be reaching for the tissues very soon.
In fact, with more than 200 cold viruses hovering in the air, each of us is likely to catch two or three this winter.
Mother was right - wrapping up warm can help fend off a cold.
Researchers have just announced that a drop in body temperature can kickstart viruses which lie dormant in people during the cold season, from October to March.
And getting your feet wet, they found, can triple the risk of developing cold symptoms such as sore throat, sneezing and coughing.
A third of them developed colds during the subsequent five days, compared to only 9 per cent of a test group who escaped the water torture.
Professor Ron Eccles, director of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University, led the tests on 180 volunteers and said the findings supported centuries of common-sense thinking.
Some nutrition scientists have shown that small amounts of alcohol can act as anti-inflammatory agents on the mucus membranes.
"Hot fluid has a soothing action and tasty drinks containing slightly bitter flavours, such as lemon and citric acid, are particularly beneficial," says Prof Eccles.
Hot drinks containing paracetamol provide relief from fever, but there is little evidence that the small doses of oral decongestant and vitamin C in many of the hot drink formulations are helpful.
Your grandmother's advice to take a bowl of chicken soup when you have a cold is not an old wives' (or grannies') tale.
Researchers looked at 55 studies comparing daily doses of 200mg vitamin C with a dummy pill.
Taking the herbal remedy ginseng is worth a try.
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