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Biotech / Medical : GUMM - Eliminate the Common Cold -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hank who wrote (4193)	1/6/2003 10:40:48 PM
From: DanZ	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 5582

The statistician has a different opinion. From the Statistical Analysis section "Assuming a treatment effect size of 30% and significance level of a = 0.05, the power to detect a significant difference between both groups with 80 total subjects was 70%." From the Duration of Cold Symptoms section "The median time to cold resolution was significantly shorter in the zinc group (median [IQR] 4.3 days [2.5-5.5] compared to the placebo group (6 days [5-8.5]) (p=0.002). Days to resolution of all but any one common cold symptom were also significantly shorter in the zinc group (p=0.006). In the 18 patients positive for rhinovirus PCR, the median time to cold resolution was also shorter in the zinc group (3 days [2.5-3.5]) compared to the placebo group (6 days [4.5-7.5]) (p=0.02)." From the Discussion section "This study showed that zincum gluconicum applied in a nasal gel shortens the duration and reduces the severity of symptoms of the common cold starting from the second day of drug use. The absolute difference in the median duration of illness between the zinc and placebo groups was more obvious in patients who had positive rhinovirus PCR, than in the whole group." The fact that Zicam was more effective against the group that tested positive for rhinovirus is significant. You can attempt to belittle the results, but they are statistically significant (p = 0.02). The following excerpt from the Introduction is also interesting because it provides a concise list of reasons that zinc may be effective against the rhinovirus. "In the continuing search to find an effective treatment for the common cold, researchers have studied zinc salts, which have several properties that make them potentially suitable agents. First, zinc combines with the carboxyl termini of rhinovirus coat proteins, thus preventing the virus from combining with surface proteins on the respiratory epithelium called intercellular adhesion molecules (ICAM-1). Second, zinc prevents the formation of viral capsid proteins, thus inhibiting the replication of several viruses, including rhinovirus, which is the most common causative agent for the common cold. Third, zinc stabilizes cell membranes and prevents histamine release. Fourth, zinc potentiates the antiviral action of native human leukocyte interferon alpha ten-fold. Fifth, zinc inhibits prostaglandin metabolism."