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No cure for the common cold.

headscratcher4

Philosopher
headscratcher4
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050727...svVJRIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Study says Echinasiea no cure for the common cold...

It is only one study, but studies like these are useful and too often ignored by promoters of "natural" cures, etc.

I bet it doesn't make a dent in sales, however, and naturalpaths and other witch doctors will find all kinds of excueses to belittle the study while not doing more studies of their own...
 
The worst hing that could happen to the human race would be cure for the cold
A little bout of mild illness is like a workout for your immune system.
 
kedo1981 said:
The worst hing that could happen to the human race would be cure for the cold
A little bout of mild illness is like a workout for your immune system.
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True. And besides, what would we have to defeat the Martians with?


[pout]And okay Headscratcher, this is the "official" thread, even though mine was first.[/pout]
 
Transferred from duplicate thread
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Yet another "herbal remedy" has been shown to be ineffective by a study in the New England Journal of Medecine.

Echinacea, the popular herbal remedy used for the common cold, does not ward off runny noses, sore throats or headaches, nor does it help speed recovery from cold symptoms, according to the results of a broad clinical trial reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Taken with other recent studies that showed no benefit from echinacea, the new findings shift the burden of proof to proponents of herbal products to demonstrate that the plant has medicinal value, researchers said.

"We find no evidence that it actually does anything to common cold symptoms," said Dr. Ronald B. Turner, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and the study's lead author. "If that's the reason you're buying it, then you're wasting your money."
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Of course, this bit is predictable.

Echinacea advocates insisted the study would have shown an effect if the dosage had been higher.

"We do a minimum of 900 milligrams three times a day," said Dr. Mary Jo DiMilia, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai Hospital School of Medicine in New York, who described herself as a satisfied echinacea user and recommended the herb to patients. She acknowledged, however, that there were no clinical trials proving echinacea was effective at that dose.
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How does a person like that get to be an assistant clinical professor?
 
Also transferred from duplicate thread

This on the face of it appears to be an extremely well conducted clinical trial.
Echinacea proponents have therefore had to quibble with other aspects of the study, but the bottom line is that if there is any effect, it should have been mesurable, despite dose differences or different sources of the drug.
This is an example of disjunctive fallacy - trying to explain away unwanted results.

ETA: Info on Professor DiMilia
http://www.sgu.edu/NewsEvents.nsf/w...5256DA5006CEB58

Mt Sinai appear to have about 37 Professors on their faculty, including Dimilia. That's just in the Department of Medicine.
 
Re: Also transferred from duplicate thread

Deetee said:
This on the face of it appears to be an extremely well conducted clinical trial.
Echinacea proponents have therefore had to quibble with other aspects of the study, but the bottom line is that if there is any effect, it should have been mesurable, despite dose differences or different sources of the drug.
This is an example of disjunctive fallacy - trying to explain away unwanted results.

ETA: Info on Professor DiMilia
http://www.sgu.edu/NewsEvents.nsf/w...5256DA5006CEB58

Mt Sinai appear to have about 37 Professors on their faculty, including Dimilia. That's just in the Department of Medicine.
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Wow, did you see the other people on that list? Sadly, Professor DiMilia looked like the most sane one of them. It looked like the featured guest list at the Amazing Woo-Woo Meeting. I think the company she runs with says a lot about her medical qualifications.
 
Normally, it takes seven days to get rid of a cold, but if you take Echinacea, it will be gone in about a week.
 
Re: Also transferred from duplicate thread

Deetee said:
This on the face of it appears to be an extremely well conducted clinical trial.
Echinacea proponents have therefore had to quibble with other aspects of the study, but the bottom line is that if there is any effect, it should have been mesurable, despite dose differences or different sources of the drug.
This is an example of disjunctive fallacy - trying to explain away unwanted results.

ETA: Info on Professor DiMilia
http://www.sgu.edu/NewsEvents.nsf/w...5256DA5006CEB58

Mt Sinai appear to have about 37 Professors on their faculty, including Dimilia. That's just in the Department of Medicine.
Click to expand...
Didja notice that the link no longer works? Or did it ever work?
"You are not authorized to take this action"
 
rwguinn said:
Didja notice that the link no longer works? Or did it ever work?
"You are not authorized to take this action"
Click to expand...
LOL. Yes, it worked fine this morning. I wonder if they saw that they were getting an abnormal amount of traffic on their site. Or perhaps, they've gone underground...
 
Please don't bodyslam me for playing you-know-who's advocate for a second, but what about the dosage issue? (The claim that the study used too low doses?) Have all the herbal medicine men changed to high dose recommendations, now? And if so, are they responsible for side effects? Or did the study use less than the accepted normal dose? And if so, why?
 
Ririon said:
Please don't bodyslam me for playing you-know-who's advocate for a second, but what about the dosage issue? (The claim that the study used too low doses?) Have all the herbal medicine men changed to high dose recommendations, now? And if so, are they responsible for side effects? Or did the study use less than the accepted normal dose? And if so, why?
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No problem Ririon. Since the other links have died, I'll do this one again to look at the story.

The dosages were based on the recommended amounts given by a German government office. (Apparently they like alternative medicine in Germany.)
Turner said his team — which included some echinacea devotees — stayed away from off-the-shelf products because they couldn't determine what was in them. The echinacea dosages they used were recommended by a government panel in Germany.
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It appeared to be the only source that could give strict numbers for doseage. Since off-the-shelf products do not list the potency, source, or active ingredients, it seems logical.

And as has been noted, even a smaller-than-optimal dose should have yielded some effect, even if less pronounced than the effects of a larger dose. Also, you have to consider that they couldn't give the volunteers megadoses because of possible side-effects.

But all the herbal companies have to do in order to debunk this study is is to run carefully controlled tests with whatever product/doseage that they find is best and let a reputable medical journal publish those results. One wonders why they are so reticent to have their product proved effective.
 
Well, in an even slightly perfect world, the guys making and selling the stuff in the USA would be involved of the study of the stuff in the USA. We all know why they weren't, but still, they should have been. That would have insured that relevant doses were used.
 
Ririon said:
Well, in an even slightly perfect world, the guys making and selling the stuff in the USA would be involved of the study of the stuff in the USA. We all know why they weren't, but still, they should have been. That would have insured that relevant doses were used.
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Yeah, but which ones? There are many "herbal" companies in the US, so which ones do you ask about the dosage? What do you do if other companies disagree with their dosage or claim they use a better grade of echinacea or use the flowers versus the roots or seeds? Do you think any of them would agree to have their product tested by an independant study such as this? You'd see the same kinds of excuses you see for not taking the Randi challenge.

There simply are no standards in the US for these sorts of things, so they had to go to a place where there were standards. But again, even if everything was not optimum, there should have been some effect if indeed echinacea had healing powers.
 
The dosages were based on the recommended amounts given by a German government office. (Apparently they like alternative medicine in Germany.)
Click to expand...

Interesting because herbalists and natrualpaths, etc., in this country do everything to keep the government out of setting any kind of standards for dosages, content, GMPs, etc.

To me, that is the ultimate admission that "dosage" is meaningless because they refuse to do anything to really test it in a scientifically quantifiable way...

People may have problems with big pharma, the FDA and big-medicine, but no product would be allowed on the market from that sector with an "open" dosage question, and were the dosage to be found wrong, the product would be pulled from the market and the parade of law-suites would begin.
 
I got a free copy of the Chicago Tribune yesterday, and an article on this study was on the front page. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it? :D
 
Aoidoi said:
I got a free copy of the Chicago Tribune yesterday, and an article on this study was on the front page. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it? :D
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:eek: You mean... a newspaper did a story on a study with a negative conclusion? AND put it on the front page? I can't believe it! There may be hope for journalism, yet!

(Oh, yeah. Like the sig, Aoidoi.)
 
Tricky said:
Yeah, but which ones? There are many "herbal" companies in the US, so which ones do you ask about the dosage? What do you do if other companies disagree with their dosage or claim they use a better grade of echinacea or use the flowers versus the roots or seeds? Do you think any of them would agree to have their product tested by an independant study such as this? You'd see the same kinds of excuses you see for not taking the Randi challenge.

There simply are no standards in the US for these sorts of things, so they had to go to a place where there were standards. But again, even if everything was not optimum, there should have been some effect if indeed echinacea had healing powers.
Click to expand...

Well, a couple of the biggest high-profile producers, anyway. It's not going to happen anyway, so nevermind... :)

What sucks, is that this may in fact be good news for the herb producers. OK, some will stop using it, but the rest will have to buy twice as much, and since there is no such thing as bad publicity, they will get many new costumers.
 
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