An Easy Way To Fight The Common Cold

At this time of year the common cold can become a massive burden. Some people are very lucky and never seem to be affected by this nasty bug but for others it’s a perpetually recurring feature of their winters every single year. It’s not a dangerous condition on its own and even at its very worst you’re not going to suffer overly. The issue is how hard it can make the rest of your life. If you have to work while feeling fatigued and generally run down then you’re not going to be working at your best. You’ll be slower and it’ll seem like much more of a challenge than it ever would have before.

The common cold isn’t going to be a condition which is ever effectively cured. Every time doctors work out a way of dealing with one strain, it mutates and the treatment is no longer effective. Over the counter medications deal with the symptoms of a condition as opposed to the condition itself, meaning you can ease the worst of it but not actually cure it.

For a long time the recommendation has been to boost your immune system and specialists recommended doing this through the use of vitamin C and Echinacea. Though vitamin C is great for upping your immune system and preventing a lot of bugs it’s not so good for colds. Recent studies have shown that its effects in this area are minimal or non-existent. So what’s the best way of avoiding a cold this winter?

Zinc has been shown to have a very positive effect on those suffering from colds. It makes it less likely for a patient to contract one in the first place and it also makes the condition much shorter lived in general. Symptoms pass easier and you’re going to be stuck with that cold for a lot less time!

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An Easy Way To Fight The Common Cold

Categories: common cold, vitamin c, zinc

Why We Can’t Cure The Common Cold

The common cold is so common because it has not been cured yet and it probably never will be. It’s not a serious condition and most people will have a cold without even noticing they do. It’s rare that a cold will get to the point where you need to take any time off to recuperate and though it might seem desirable to, you know you don’t actually need to.

Over the years the world and a kitchen sink have been suggested for treating the common cold and yet nothing really does. This is because the virus which causes it is actually different each time. It mutates and changes so quickly that by the time we cure one strain there’s an entirely new one. Scientists don’t bother doing this because it’s in no way deadly and there are more important illnesses to focus on. All of the cold and flu medicine you’ll buy over the counter are actually designed to treat the symptoms and done kill the condition itself. IT’s better to just wait for it to pass.

There’s been a lot of hype in the past for vitamin C and probiotics in terms of curing or at least protecting against the common cold. This is because both of these things can be used to help boost the immune system and if your immune system is up to scratch then you should never suffer from the condition in the first place!

Vitamin C is more hype than reality, it might work partially but living on orange juice while you’ve got a cold hasn’t been shown to get rid of that cold any faster than not doing so. Probiotics however, have shown some promise. They’re the good bacteria which live in our guts and they’ve been shown to boost the immune system enough to lessen the risk of contracting the cold.

So, if you want to limit your chance of contracting a cold then fill up on probiotic yoghurts and similar. Be aware that this won’t make you immune to cold! A lessened chance isn’t the same thing as no chance.

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Why We Can’t Cure The Common Cold

Categories: common cold, probiotics, vitamins