Special Edition: Botanicals
Echinacea
The purple flower has performed the most robustly of all the NY AG 7. The cross-channel sales aggregates have increased from $55,795,014 in 2014 to $71,891,945 for the 52 Weeks Ending August 7, 2016.
The science has continued to develop in recent years, with a large study published in 2012 with E. purpurea (Echinaforce product) indicating that the duration of the common cold may be reduced by 26%, and the number of recurrent colds decreased by 60%. This study was a gold standard randomized, double-blind, parallel, placebo-controlled clinical trial with 755 participants, (M. Jawad et al. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, doi: 10.1155/2012/841315).
A study published last year found that the Echinaforce product (a combination of concentrated echinacea herb and root extract and elderberry) is as effective as Tamiflu (antiviral medicine) for the early treatment of ‘flu.
The study was hailed as “yet another significant human clinical trial that helps to document the clinical benefits of this specific Swiss echinacea extract”, by Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of the American Botanical Council. Current Therapeutic Research (doi: 10.1016/j.curtheres.2015.04.001)
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