Echinacea science
The largest ever study of echinacea found that daily consumption of the herbal could help to stave off the common cold.
Published in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the new data reports that three daily doses of the common remedy for four months reduced the likelihood of developing cold and also slashed the duration of the illness by an average of 26%.
The herbal supplementation was also reported cut the number of recurrent colds, suffered by those with weakened immune systems, by 60%.
“Prophylactic treatment with Echinaforce over 4 months appeared to be beneficial for many reasons,” explain the researchers, led by senior author Professor Ronald Eccles, from Cardiff University, UK.
“Overall, the risk/benefit results from this clinical study suggested that long-term treatment with E. purpurea over 4 months can be recommended,” they said.
The study was partly funded by a grant from A. Vogel, who manufactures the Echinaforce product used in the clinical trial.