Another study questions the ability of the herbal Echinacea to reduce symptoms of the common cold and help patients recover faster. The new findings are based on a trial of 120 adults, who took 300 milligrams of an echinacea juice preparation daily at the first sign of a cold. The results, reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine (164:1237-1241) this week, show that the herbal remedy had no effect on severity of symptoms and the time taken to recover from a cold compared to those given placebo. The findings support the results of a study in children last year. This trial, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that echinacea did not reduce the severity or duration of infections although it did appear to cut the number of respiratory tract infections in the children.
