"Various topical zinc products are advertised as reducing the number of days of the cold. Double blind studies are still not clear on this result and with some reports of anosmia following this use, more studies are needed."
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Smile And You Don't Catch Cold
Los Angeles, CA 90048 September 14, 2003
Don’t Catch a Cold
If I had the final answer to preventing common colds, I wouldn’t be here – I’d be on my 100 foot yacht off Monte Carlo.
Dr Sheldon Cohen in August issue of Psychosomatic medicine has indeed come up with a “happy” solution entitled, “Emotional Style and Susceptibility to the Common Cold.”
There are some other actions that one can take to reduce the incidence of common colds for you to look at here.
Does vitamin C work? Lots of people claim they don’t catch cold when they take this. But a true scientific evaluation hasn’t been done yet. The important thing about Vitamin C however is that excess of 500 milligrams will reduce bone calcium so it is best to limit your intake to 500 mg a day.
Antihistamines will not prevent or cure a cold. However, some persons get less mucus and drainage when they take an antihistamine so one the first day or so it can be tried. Benadryl 50 mg is an antihistamine that has a side effect of making one drowsy. In order to get sleep and a dry nose, on the first night of the acute cold, not a bad idea.
Persons who always catch a cold when everyone else has one, can reduce the number of colds by doing nasal / sinus irrigation twice a day. This is because the nose produces a product called ICAM – 1. This product is the chemical by which the common cold virus enters the body. By doing irrigation twice a day, you remove this ICAM –1.
If there is no ICAM –1, then there is no entry portal for the cold virus.
If you use the Hydro Pulse ® Nasal / Sinus Irrigator, there is a double benefit as this, in addition to the ICAM – 1 removal, also removes thick mucus that contains virus and bacteria, and stimulates nasal / sinus cilia to beat at a normal rate so they can defend the body.
Drinking huge amounts of hot tea and chicken soup definitely will help reduce the number of days of the cold. This is because these products stimulate cilia action.
What about Cold Vaccines? This has been the holy grail of medicine for years. Unfortunately, there are many dozens of cold viruses types, and a vaccine against one type won’t help you for the other type.
In many persons, the cold virus causes a dryness which helps the virus. Here a moisturizer such as Breathe.ease XL Nasal Gel can be very helpful. By moisturizing the nose itself as well as at the cellular level, the natural defense products of the nose such as lysozyme get a canal so they can get to the offending virus. In addition, this gel contains Xylitol, a natural sugar that your own body produces. Seems that certain bacteria can’t digest this sugar and so they go hungry.
Breathe.ease XL Nasal Gel started out as a moisturizer for persons who frequently get sick from the dry cabin air while flying – the gel moistens the nose to help natural resistance. More recently it has become popular for persons who snore because of dryness of the nose. Today, these patients describe benefit in using it if they do catch a cold. This nasal gel helps relieve the symptoms of dryness.
Various topical zinc products are advertised as reducing the number of days of the cold. Double blind studies are still not clear on this result and with some reports of anosmia following this use, more studies are needed.
However there is one proven cold prevention method and that is a cheerful attitude. From Carnegie Mellon Institute, Dr Sheldon Cohen reported that when cold virus was deliberately sprayed into the nose, the cheerful go getters got fewer colds than the depressed persons. It is felt that a cheerful disposition produces better immune chemicals. How to be cheerful? How about playing cheerful music? Singing it?
If you do get a cold, this is not a life threatening event. Don’t rush to the medicine cabinet and start forcing nose drops and pills. Drink the hot tea, put on a comedy video and get into bed and rest. Probably you will be better in the morning.
OOPS! I forgot. Take an aspirin, rest, be of good cheer, drink hot tea and chicken soup and maybe you won’t have to see me in the morning.
Psychosomatic Medicine 65:652-657 (2003)
© 2003 American Psychosomatic Society
Emotional Style and Susceptibility to the Common Cold
Sheldon Cohen, PhD ,William J. Doyle, PhD ,Ronald B. Turner, MD ,Cuneyt M. Alper, MD and David P. Skoner, MD
From the Department of Psychology (S.C.), Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; Departments of Otolaryngology (W.J.D., C.M.A.) and Pediatrics (D.P.S.) Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and the Department of Pediatrics (R.B.T.), Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina (now at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville, Virginia).
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Qustions? Murray Grossan, MD
Cedars Sinai Medical
8631 W 3rd St
Los Angeles, Ca 90048
310 659 1006
fax 310 858 7997
e mail entconsult@aol.com
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Cold prevention
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