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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3→Archive 5

Does cold weather bring on more infection?

I don't know, but walking barefoot on a cold floor instantly causes my throat to congest and nose to run. The Cure? Wear warm socks and shoes! Why does this occur? Who knows, but it is called idiopathic rhinitis. My zinc lozenges help too. (reference [1]) georgeeby 2/3/06

Linked to low humidity

It would seem to me that the best possible link would be the low humidity of cold air. This clearly leads to a drying of the nose, lips, etc., and this drying leads to cracking (even microscopically) which allows viruses to enter the body. The NIH says there's no link, however.... Sublium 16:02, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Cold doesn't cause cold

Regarding the "cold doesn't cause cold" issue, Dr. Greene gives an interesting argument which could give some justification why cold air could still influence the catching of a cold, despite no clinical evidence *yet*. I suggest that those who are knowledgeable about this have a look at this and maybe make a few additions to the article. I am definitively not knowledgeable enough of the subject yet to have a solid opinion. -- Simon Lacoste-Julien 16:30 (PST), March 7, 2004

The coldness of winter also reduces the immune system which would give an increase in infection Jonathanriddell 21:03, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have heard that you can get a cold more easily when it's cold because the blood ciculation in the areas near the skin is reduced so that viruses can evolve more easily. I don't really know anything, but I think it hard to believe that there is no connection whatsoever. Is it really an established opinion that temperature has no effect? If not, the article is very misleading - many people may be sitting out there in the cold now feeling safe but catching a cold anyway ;-) --Abaris 23 Aug 2004

Cold weather tends to keep people in close quarters, leading to increased physical contact, so this could be a contributing factor. A-giau 05:52, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not an MD, but Dr Greene's webpage renders me skeptical. Despite the .org extension, his web site looks pretty much like a commercial site. I'd always be careful with facts from this type of websites, although he does not seem to sell alternative medicines to treat common colds. He is a pediatrician, not a specialist on respiratory infections.

Apart from my prejudices above, he starts his argument by a short review of scientific research that showed no relationship between temperature and cold infections, which does not hinder him from setting up an unproven theory about how temperature might affect the chance of getting infected. IIRC, the volunteers in earlier studies were deliberately sprayed with cold viruses and temperature did not affect infection rates. His theory might seem plausible, but is not backed up by empirical data. -- Han-Kwang (talk) 12:47, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If cold does not cause cold, how can you explain observable coincidence between staying in cold with getting ill? This coincidence seems too strong for nocebo. --Grzes 00:33, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not an MD, but I tend to have more belief in controlled experiments than personal experience. As an analogy: I have observed that almost always if I choose between two queues in the supermarket, I pick the one that is slowest. Everyone else that I know has the same experience. This correlation is too strong to be a coincidence.

This is orthogonal to the common cold issue, but I recall listening to a talk in a mathematics conference 6 years ago which gave some explanation using queuing theory for this phenomenon. I unfortunately don't remember the argument (and had no idea what were Markov chains and stochastic processes at the time). Now that I know more about those, I can't reproduce a model which would make you more likely to choose the bad queue if you only have 2 queues (because of the symmetry of the model). But I would first of all suspect a psychological component of noticing the bad events first (so that you would tend to notice less when you picked the right lane). And also, note that you often have more than 2 lanes. And so if you just consider the 3 lanes case (say one to your left and one to your right), and they are all equally likely of finishing first, then the probability that one of your neighbors being faster than you is 2/3. Simon Lacoste-Julien 22:05, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is a seasonal variation in common cold infections, which is attributed to people staying indoors more often, with less ventilation to get rid of airborne infectuous droplets. If the chance of a cold-bearing person transmitting his/her infection is 0.9 during summertime, and 1.1 during wintertime, that will make the difference between very few infections and an explosive epidemy.

I know about the indoor argument, but my personal experience is that I catch colds when I have been in cold temperature not properly dressed, for some reasons. I can spend a lot of time indoor during the cold season and not get sick, and then if I spend some time outside during windy conditions without a scarf, for example, the next day I'm sick (usually throat pain first)... These coincidences are pretty consistent in my experience, and they would merit explanations (better than just 'you spend more time indoor during the cold season' which is a general statement not explaining the individual coincidences like 'I get out in the cold once and I get sick'). Simon Lacoste-Julien 22:05, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Han-Kwang (talk) 10:25, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Close quarters, but also all irritants have been shown to increase concentrations of ICAM-1, the rhinovirus receptor. Cold weather is another irritant to the respiratory tract, so might increase ICAM-1 just like all sorts of irritants and allergens do. As well cold/humid weather tends to produce cold-like symptoms that might increase the transmission of the virus eg., sneezing and wiping etc. Ie cold weather uses the tricks that the virus uses to spread.. and might increases receptor levels to the virus.. BTW I don't think a "low" immune system explains it except that a immune *reaction* for whatever reason can affect ICAM-1.. Err.. at least in most cases, of course you can get ill from extreme cold.. Also of course the school system beginning in september around the world as well as just a fluke of periodicity in virus levels all explain it, need we more explanation? In this case all help to explain, and no, lots of explanations do not mean that we don't know the right one. (posted around March 2005)

Someone added to the main text that there is no evidence that chilling increases risk of getting the common cold. The BEST of these studies have been done using specific viral "loads" on subjects and having a treatment arm and a placebo arm. This doesn't exclude the possibility that cold weather affects the transmission.. And increasing the closeness of people and affecting the sneezing and wiping which is how the virus spreads is not the only way this might happen.. I agree with the poster so I didn't edit it just wanted to comment that alot of people misuse the data, not necessarily misused here

The real question is, why does nearly everyone in the world believe strongly that cold simply causes the common cold? It's always "come in and dry off, you'll catch a cold" or "wear a jacket, you'll catch a cold" and inevitably they're right.. or perhaps they would have eventually been right anyway?

---

Please notice that there is a comprehensive discussion about the relationship between chilling and common cold in de:Diskussion:Erkältung. Apokrif 16:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I have always heard the explanation that being inside in winter causes colds, but it has never made sense to me. It may contribute, but what about in the summer? I live in Washington, D.C., and I can tell you, being outside here in August is no more pleasant than in January. True, there is no school, and some people do go outside, especially to pools, but there are a lot of people who avoid going outside as much as possible. I go out more now (January) than in August. And what about people farther south, like in Florida? I used to go down to visit my grandparents in Florida once or twice a year. If we visited for Christmas, we'd go outside all the time; if it was summer, we'd spend most of the time inside with the AC. And this wasn't Miami or anything, it was northern Florida, Jacksonville. I just don't see how colds can be so common in winter and so rare at other times without some other explanation.

I'm going to throw this out as a possible counter-argument: whether it is summer or winter, the enironment is about the same indoors. Most people spend most of their time indoors-- even if they're athletic, they're still only spending a few hours a day outside. Would there really be much difference in our external environments from one season to another?

Back to my original arguement: could there possibly be a connection between people showering more in the summer? I know I do. I also know that, despite spending almost all of my time inside in both August and January, I have to shower more in August. This doesn't make sense according to what I just said in the last paragraph. Could it be humidity? Could the change, whatever it is, also contribute to colds? Could people showering less contribute?

Check the section below. If it has any validity, there's your answer-- temperature and humidity do in fact affect colds. One last thing, is there any reason we're doing these horizontal bars? Twilight Realm 22:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Horrible reference...

"However, researchers at the Common Cold Centre at the University of Cardiff [8] recently demonstrated that cold temperatures can lead to a greater susceptibility to viral infection. They showed that a group of people who sat with their feet in cold water for 20 minutes a day for a week had a 1 in 3 chance of developing cold symptoms during that week, while a control group who sat with their feet in an empty bowl had a 1 in 10 chance. It is thought this may be due to cold temperatures reducing blood circulation needed to carry white blood cells to the area of infection."

Why is the reference to this a news article with no reference to the actual study? The only other study I see by the Common Cold Centre is this. It concludes that 13/90 people that had cold feet had symptoms and there was 5/90 in the other group that showed symptoms. With numbers like that how do you come up with 1/3 and 1/10? With a conclusion quoted below

"Acute chilling of the feet causes the onset of common cold symptoms in around 10% of subjects who are chilled. Further studies are needed to determine the relationship of symptom generation to any respiratory infection."

There is no scientific evidence to suggest that exposure to cold weather causes the common cold. Period. The NIH, which is -I think- one of the most reliable sources for health information, does not support the unfounded claim that cold weather causes colds: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/cold.htm

I should also point out that some of you are confusing two separate concepts: rhinitis associated with the cold virus and rhinitis associated unknown etiology (i.e. idiopathic rhinitis). The former concept is relevant to this article, the latter is not. A study that shows a possible link between idiopathic rhinitis and exposure to cold temperatures has absolutely no relevance to this article, by the simple fact that the common cold is not an idiopathic illness. Moreover, it should be intuitively obvious that a study linking idiopathic rhinitis to cold exposure in no way implies a link between cold exposure and the rhinitis associated with viral infection. Jay Litman 14:58, 22 September 2006

Scientific or no, many people have noted the correlation between cold weather and increased illness with "a cold" (or the flu for that matter). I have directly observed this in my own household over the course of 3 years. Can it be coincidence that my two kids both get sick 5-7 times during the colder weather here in northern Virginia (about 6 months of the year), and 0-1 times during the warmer weather the rest of the year? Whether or not there is a direct cause and effect may be debatable, but the correlation in my mind is beyond question.

Perhaps the "cold weather" is sufficiently different from simple "cold conditions" to have evaded detection in the studies? --greenmoss 01:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

No. Your kids get sick because they are in contact with other sick people. There is a seasonal pattern to the common cold, but it's probably not the cold as such. See e.g. flu season. In my experience, it can be freezing and soddy weather, but if you're not in close contact to people who have the cold, you don't catch it yourself either. Keep yourself informed, and -be responsible- keep those around you informed, be hygienic, you know the drill... When I was still a high-schooler I always caught the cold; however in college people are allowed to be responsible and stay at home if they catch the cold - and the number of times I caught the cold dropped dramatically. Shinobu 02:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

So, we have several non-scientists concluding that exposure to cold causes the cold based on personal observation. Interestingly enough, the process of obtaining scientific knowledge is a little more involved than making casual observations at home and rakishly speculating as to the cause of those phenomena. Such casual observations are, at best, the makings of a hypothesis. Although there is a statistical association between the winter months and increased incidence of cold virus infections, this association alone does not prove that exposure to cold weather causes colds (obviously, as statistical association never implies a cause-and-effect relationship, and there are also plenty of confounding variables affecting one's susceptibility to the cold wirus). Apparently, the NIAID reference wasn’t enough. Here are some more articles that water down the science enough for most people to understand: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5184405 http://www.hhmi.org/cgi-bin/askascientist/highlight.pl?kw=&file=answers%2Fimmunology%2Fans_023.html http://uuhsc.utah.edu/healthinfo/adult/infectious/cold.htm

Although the ‘cold weather’ hypothesis has clearly been falsified, there are other standing hypotheses regarding cold infections and the winter months (as one can see in the above references) that could be worked into this article, if worded properly. User:Jay Litman 05:00, 23 September 2006

You can have too much faith in science, too. Experiments tend to be too controlled to consider all possible factors. Scientists can be just as naive in their faith in science as lay people can be in their faith in experience. It is probably too complex an issue to easily determine whether exposure to certain weather conditions affects whether people get colds. Although personal experience is not always trustworthy, I think in this case there is too much repeated experience to ignore. 24.68.180.163 21:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

So we're actually using a reference to a faulty study? That's bad... Shinobu 15:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Studies and experience aside, I think we can agree that being cold or having wet hair will not make someone sick. Becoming infected with a virus may make you sick, and certain conditions may suppress your imune system, but simply walking around with wet hair cannot make you sick. Can we remove that reference from the article? Or at least require it to be cited.

Cures?

  • Early recovery from cold is simple, at the moment of "Cold ?" use a simple gauge mask to kepp warm and humid the nose by own breath. Continue for one or two days even during sleeping and working. With warm pads around neck will help quicker recovery. For detail

http://iccincsm.tripod.co.jp or mail to iccinc@f6.dion.ne.jp

Satoshi mochizuki(Ph.D.)

  • I want a second opinion - is this blankworthy as an infomercial? Thanks. -- Pakaran 01:32, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • sounds accurate,it really does not replicate well at body temperature thus infects only the nasopharynx region and above, but not below throat.. Also the higher temp should make mucociliary clarance easier so sympoms aren't so bad..

Does anyone have a problem with including information about zinc gluconate with regard to shortening the duration of colds? Here are some of the studies: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=15499830

Sublium 21:29, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Reportable Disease?

  • "Until the 1980s, by law, the common cold was not a reportable disease. "
Which law? Where? Jonathanriddell 21:03, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • In the United States (possibly Canada). Compton Encyclopedia 1963 says "The common cold is not a reportable disease under the law. Because of this, there are no reliable official statistics as there are for [..] other communicable diseases. In order to estimate its frequency, one must rely on various types of surveys..such as those made by the Public Health Service" I'm not sure where the 1980s bit came. Rhymeless 02:53, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"Most common of all diseases"

I thought that was tooth decay. Neutralitytalk 00:40, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

I doubt it. Actually, the article says it's the second most common. That seems questionable, but I'll see that article's Talk page. Twilight Realm 22:52, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Coryza

Coryza currently redirects to this page, but the term does not appear on this page at all. Could someone with the necessary knowledge please either add something to the page explaining the term, or remove the redirect if it's not appropriate?

"Cardiff-study"

In the chapter "cold as misnomer" the text They showed that a group of people who sat with their feet in cold water for 20 minutes a day for a week had a 1 in 3 chance of developing symptoms during that week, while a control group who sat with their feet in an empty bowl had a 1 in 10 chance might be a little misleading. The evidence given in the quoted abstract [2] sounds a little different to me, but I do not have access to the paper in full text. Could anyone with knowledge about the whole article please verify whether 1) they have been cooled daily for one week or just once, and 2) 13/90 vs. 5/90 or 1/3 vs. 1/10 "suffered from cold" or "developed symptoms" ?? Thanks in advance, your information will be wellcome for our discussion in de:WP --JHeuser 10:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

"Stress and the immune system"

Anytime the body is under great stress, such as being too cold, will have an undesirable effect on the immune system. Being too cold can and has been a major contributing factor in wether or not a person is able to defend itself against ilinesses. In this case, cold weather can cause a person to catch the common cold or any illness. It would be vey unwise to allow your body to be too cold for any extended period of time. 10 January 2006

Wikipedia:Verifiability Apokrif 15:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Experiments show that the state of your immune system is irrelevant to whether or not you will catch a cold.

Why am I being blocked?

I want to include the following revised paragraph in the "Common Cold" page, but am being blocked.

"Zinc-containing preparations (zinc lozenges) have been claimed to be effective in the treatment of cold infections. One study attributed efficacy to a placebo effect related to the strong and unpleasant taste of improperly prepared zinc lozenges (Reference: Farr et al. (1987)). Efficacy of zinc lozenges studied by Farr et al. was prevented by addition of citric acid to the lozenges (reference Eby). Further research showed that zinc lozenges prepared with zinc gluconate and any sweet carbohydrate except fructose become extremely bitter upon aging, an effect that does not occur with zinc acetate. Consequently, all over the counter zinc gluconate lozenges have been "flavor-masked" with citric acid, glycine or ascorbic acid, thus eliminating ionic zinc and efficacy. Only at physiologic pH 7.4 do zinc ions count, and these food acids eliminate them as shown in this solution chemistry computation. Generally, zinc lozenges reduce the duration of common colds in a dose dependent manner for positively charged ionic zinc at pH 7.4, with 5 to 7 day reductions in duration being possible. Zinc nasal sprays do not shorten colds and the reason is explained in the Discussion section of this article."

What is so wrong with the above? I (George Eby, homepage http://coldcure.com email: george.eby.2006 "at" coldcure.com ) discovered the zinc for common cold effect and someone is blocking presentation of the truth? Why? I want to learn how to block too! Georgeeby,205.238.154.148 February 1, 2006

Wikipedia has a strict No original research policy to ensure the unbiased neutrality of its content. Other editors may cite your work, if they don't, you shouldn't either. Since you also have a financial gain from publicizing your website, and have been warned before at 205.238.154.148, it would be advisable not to add any more links. Femto 13:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
  • to Femco from Georgeeby, Thank you. I am beginning to understand.
There are strict Wikipedia guidelines requiring a neutral point of view in all articles. This includes not citing your own work, and not including numerous links to commercial web sites, such as yours. In my opinion, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that zinc preparations are unlikely to have any affect on rhinovirus.
I have not read the entire article of your meta-analysis, but given that the common cold only lasts about one to two weeks, I am very surprised that you claim a decrease in duration of 7 days. If this were true, you should be able to raise substantial venture capital to further your research and commercialize your products.
I would be interested in learning why no company has invested the time and effort into the required in vitro mode of action studies, preclinical toxicology studies, dose ranging studies, human safety studies, and adequate and well-controlled efficacy clinical studies to obtain FDA approval of any zinc preparation. Certainly not because a cure for the common cold would not be very lucrative, but probably because no pharmaceutical company is convinced of the scientific value of your research.
71.141.243.10 03:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
  • to Femco from Georgeeby. You raise good questions. Glad to answer. Most of the material needed for understanding is in the above two peer-reviewed articles. I licensed my patents to Bristol Myers Products in the 1980s and Warner lambert in the 1990s and a number of other companies including Quigley. Each of these companies had a single guiding theory that led to comercial failure of the basic discovery. That idea was that the lozenges had to taste like candy. Afterall, there were really good tasting common-cold throat lozenges already on the market, in both the United States, Europe and elsewhere. In these company's "marketing" opinion, the zinc lozenges had to taste good. VERY STRANGELY, zinc gluconate has the extremely unique problem of reacting with all sweet carbohydrates except fructose (as was used in the successful Medical Research Council Common cold Unit trial of zinc gluconate against rhinovirus-induced common colds) to become truly the most bitter tasting substance known. It tasted very much like sucrose octaacetate (an extremely bitter substance). This flavor-instability problem took 2 weeks to 2 months to develop in situ. This problem led these companies to add chemical "flavor masks" to the lozenges to eliminate the bitterness. In the case of BMC it was citric acid (Farr et al). In the case of Warner Lambert (Turner et al.) it was by cooking zinc acetate with oleates, and stearates to produce a zinc wax (this was used only to eliminate the astringency of ionic Zn2+, since zinc acetate lozenges are not bitter). In the case of Quigley, it was by adding glycine. You can see the effect of these agents on the availablity of ionic zinc (importantly) at physiologic pH at http://coldcure.com/html/solution-chemistry.html. This figure's data is pre-summed for all positively charged species, thus it appears simplier than the published figures in "Zinc Lozenges: Cold Cure or Candy?", but it conveys exactly the same information. There were several studies that used zinc gluconate with sucrose etc, and the compliance with protocol (due to in situ bitterness) was so poor, no positive results were possible. Other studies were with the de-ionized zinc lozenges producing null results. Only the zinc lozenges that retained fully ionized zinc at physiologic pH worked. The best test of zinc acetate (without flavor-masking agents) was by Prasad et al. (http://coldcure.com/html/prasad.pdf). I made those 12.8 mg zinc (acetate) lozenges and his team tested them. Today, I market nearly idential 14 mg lozenges from http://coldcure.com. Patents have a life-time, and mine are nearly expired. It is highly unlikely that any major pharmaceutical company will venture into zinc lozenges for colds since there is inadequate patent protection. Do you see how flavor and taste issues caused marketing to lead science astray? Had zinc gluconate not had its weird taste issue, the cure for common colds would have been accepted years ago IMHO. There were very few repeated tests of idential formulas, with the exception of Cold-Eeze (Quigley). There is nothing wrong with the flavor and mild astringency of my 14-mg lozenges, and I sell them world-wide, but at a low level. In the U.S., zinc gluconate and zinc acetate are "homeopathic" for common colds. Consequently, 40 mg of zinc acetate (yielding 14 mg zinc) in a 4.0 gram lozenge produces a legal homeopathic 1X dilution, for which legal drug claims can be made without U.S. FDA approval (following certain homeopathic rules). Interestingly, only the Quigley company with its ZIGG lozenges, and me, use that law! None of my zinc acetate licensees (F&F Foods, Weider Nutrition, Quantum Health) would follow, why I do not know why. Had they, they would have had commercial products that would have been commercially huge. On the other hand, they chose to market their zinc acetate lozenges as "dietary supplements". There is a law in the U.S. that precludes "throat lozenges" from being dietary supplements. When the FDA pointed that out to them, two of them stopped selling product and the other sold product with nothing on the label mentioning "dietary suplements", although they could have used the available drug laws applicable, but they continued to refuse. Glad you asked? Obviously there is much more, but that is the guts of it. In short, one problem led to another, resulting in disrepute and failure. Once the chemically modified zinc lozenges failed in clinical trials, the big companies assumed that they could not market "bad tasting" lozenges regardless of efficacy and no further testing was done. I think they were wrong, at least for the zinc acetate lozenge product that I now market. Worse, in the U.S., commercial zinc lozenges sold at retail and on the web by many (countless) companies are "flavor masked" with citric acid, ascorbic acid and glycine, resulting in no efficacy. There are over 135,000 pages cited by http://google.com for "zinc lozenges", yet the number of effective zinc lozenge formulations is one. Therefore, the notion that zinc lozenges are ineffective against common colds is totally valid for those wide-spread, totally corrupted products. How does one compete in that environment? A bit of support and less redicule for me would go a long way.
Since I'm nowhere close to being a chemist or physician, I won't take part in any actual discussions on the content. That said, it should also be mentioned that contributions from (necessarily biased) expert editors are explicitly encouraged, actually—as long as the point is not pushed. Don't get frustrated when people don't pick up on it, and it's perfectly fine to put suggestions on the talk pages. Femto 16:09, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

It has been 27 years of frustration for me, George Eby.

Have you tried a tablet or capsule formulation in which taste is not an issue?71.141.243.10 03:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and swallowed tablets and capsules have no effect, regardless of dosage. One can use the zinc acetate lozenges and not swallow the zinc-laden saliva with no adverse change in benefit. It is totally a local biophysical effect. Read the Discussion section of http://coldcure.com/html/zinc-nasal-spray.pdf to learn about the effects of the mouth-nose BCEC. It is very strange! But, it is the reason the cure for common colds was not discovered in about 1900, a hundred years ago when they were first experimenting with zinc and colds. georgeeby 2/5/2006

helpfull tips

i hate the common cold as im sure all of you do too but there is a very helpful treatment this is curry it is very helpfull in clearing your nose etc also COLD-FX is another awsome help you can find it in almost all canadian pharmacies!

John Wesley

"In the 18th century, John Wesley wrote a book about curing diseases; it advised cold baths as prevention and stated that chilling causes the common cold"

This doesn't make sense. Why would someone advise cold baths as a cold prevention, then state that cold caused the common cold? Seems like an error.

I think the idea is that continual exposure to cooler temperatures would make the person less likely to catch a cold. Certainly in the early part of the 20th century, being exposed to colder weather was seen as "good for the constitution". This may sound strange, but it was not so much the exposure to being cold, but the moving from warm to cold to warm. The idea that exposure to the cold would be good for you was pretty much demolished during the first world war. --One Salient Oversight 10:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Colds and (nonhuman) animals

Does anyone know whether (nonhuman) animals can get colds? If so, please add this information to the article (citing sources if possible). Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 23:48, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Try Googling "animal upper respiratory infection", without the quotes. Then do your own research and edits 71.141.243.10 03:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I know horses can catch the common cold from other horses and humans, and humans can catch it form horses too. --124.171.250.157 12:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
While URTI are common in horses, none of the most common equine viruses infects humans [3] —G716 <T·C> 11:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Egyptians and the common cold

The sentence about Egyptians seems dubious for two reasons. 1) It seems perfectly obvious that the Egyptians should know something as prevalent as the common cold, so why mention it at all? 2) The statement "there were hieroglyphs for cough and for the common cold" is trivial if the writing simply was phonetic. After all, you can write anything with a phonetic system. It is not trivial, if there indeed were dedicated ideograms for the common cold and coughing, but in that case a source should be mentioned. I checked some online dictionaries, which did not contain the ideograms, but bigger printed dictionaries may reveal some. Mlewan 11:29, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Inhabitants of cold countries

Moreover, if cold weather is directly linked to the spread of the common cold, then it would be easy to prove by comparing the infection rates of people who live in colder climates (such as Iceland or Greenland) with people who live in warmer climates (such as countries close to the equator).

Inhabitants of cold countries could have better clothes, or could have benefited from natural evolution. Are the people you refer to indigenes or inmigrants? Apokrif 18:27, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


Picture on main page

The picture on the main page just bothers me for some reason; whether its the color or what, I'm not sure. Is it that apropro to put up a picture of someone sneezing? I'm sure everyone knows what sneezing looks like. Andrewr47 03:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Can't say I like or see much use in it either. Femto 12:10, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Bad resolution, distorted colours, psychedelic. Not informative. I don't have any better picture, but I'm sure it should be easy to find. Mlewan 19:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
It looks like an STD prevention advertisement. The points above taken into consideration, I think it's best to remove the image. Shinobu 08:50, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

minor, minor change

changed

"Although widely available and advertized in the United States...."

to

"Although widely available and advertised in the United States...."

because advertized is not right spelling-wise. I just thought people might want to know, as I'm not a "wiki-editor" or anything. 66.91.41.104 08:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Zinc Cold Remedy lawsuit

According to cited source, http://www.homeowatch.org/legal/zicam.html, the lawsuit was for "Seventy-five Thousand Dollars ($75,000.00)", and not, as this article says, $75,000,000 ($75 mil). I am correcting this. If I have missed something let me know. Dkordik 07:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

More common now than in the 1970s?

Is it just my imagination, or is the common cold far, far, far more common now than in the 1970s (at least in the United States)? I first noticed this around 1989, in fact, and the situation hasn't improved since. -- Unsigned comment

It would be interesting to know whether decreased hygiene is an issue. I know that back in the conformist 1950s and 1960s, handwashing was highly emphasized, and that's no longer the case. When is the last time you saw any patron in a restaurant walk in, wash their hands, then sit down to eat? -Rolypolyman 14:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

"The best way to blow your nose"

On the "Complications" section there is a passage saying "the best way to blow your nose is keeping both nasal openings open when blowing and wiping rather than fully covering them, permitting pressure to partially dissipate.". I have read numerous sites stating the contrary, that one should block one nassal passage while blowing the other, including http://www.ehow.com/how_9504_blow-nose.html


I did not operate any change on the page as i am no specialist in this domain, but i think it may be a mistake and should be taken in consideration for re-edit, as i found basically no reference recommending the statements made there.

unreferenced text removed G716 22:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Hydrogen Peroxide

OK, so this has been deleted from the main page, but I don't think it should have been:

Hydrogen peroxide has been claimed to prevent colds. A cotton swab is dipped in 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide and then used to clean the ear canal. The theory is that the cold virus incubates in the ear canal before spreading to the rest of the mucous membranes. So killing the virus while it is still in the ear canal aims to prevent the cold altogether. [1]

This is what I wrote in the hydrogen peroxide talk article:

  • I am the one who included this blurb, though originally with a different, admittedly "not very good" reference. I stumbled across the claim while looking for something to prevent me from getting the 6 or 7 colds a year I get nowadays. Doing a google search returns a lot more of these kinds of claims. Here was the original that I found. According to this, "pharmaceutical grade" 3% concentration should not be used internally; only diluted "food grade" should be used. This mentions a study by Richard Simmons regarding colds entering the body via the ear canal, and German research treating colds and flu with hydrogen peroxide. This mentions the same thing. Anecdotally, after finding this information I tried the solution mentioned above when I felt a cold coming on, felt something "odd" in my throat where the colds normally originate, and the cold disappeared. So it seems there is something to this. What do you think is required to get this put back in the main article, as it seems like this would be very useful information for people to have?

So what are the objections to this blurb? Can someone suggest improvements? If this does work (and my experience so far has been positive), it should be included in this article IMHO --greenmoss 11:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I've also gotten good results from putting peroxide in the ears as a preventive measure. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I read about this technique over 2 years ago, and haven't gotten a cold ever since. I think there is a deliberate conspiracy by Big Medicine to keep this technique covered up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.5.222.57 (talk • contribs)

I don't know, but it seems like a lot of original research is involved here. The technique has to be validated through published research, not by your own personal experiences. It's still possible to include this piece of information as "X and Y claim that..." coupled with a reference. —LestatdeLioncourt 11:36, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Antarctica

I once heard that Antarctica (presumably the coldest place in the world) is the only location on Earth that is free from the cold. Is this true? It sounds plausible enough.. I mean, there isn't a permanent population there.
-Robin Chen 03:31, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Treatment: Steam

The article cites a study ref #65 that used a double-blind placebo design to test the effectiveness of steam treatments on cold symptom relief. The conclusion of the study was that there was no evidence of an effect. However, the study only used a single treatment phase (that lasted one hour) and measured the effects of that treatment for up to 7 days later. Using this sort of criterion, most drugs would provide little effect either (Take an aspirin, and then do self-report each night for 7 days. Want to guess if there was a difference on days 2-6?). It might therefore be worthwhile to add that the study only utilized a single treatment. 66.215.241.63 08:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Cumulative Cost

It's currently stated that the cumulative cost of the common cold to the united states is billions of dollars. What does this mean - billions of dollars per year? Please clarify as this statement is meaningless as it is. 130.88.51.45 (talk) 21:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)HHR

Added "annual" to clarify. Regards—G716 <T·C> 00:58, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Cold feet

"With respect to the causation of cold-like symptoms, researchers at the Common Cold Centre at the Cardiff University[63] conducted a study to "test the hypothesis that acute cooling of the feet causes the onset of common cold symptoms"" Wow.. cold viruses actually target people with cold feet - arn't they clever. This is a virus for gods sake. Can we please have some educated discussion about this rather than some rabid political agenda. VIRUS INFECTED PEOPLE (OR OBJECTS RECENTLY INFECTED) INFECT PEOPLE WITH THE COMMON COLD VIRUS. IT IS A VIRUS.


Length of cold

I'm wondering about the citation for a cold lasting 3 to 5 days as of 4:30pm EST Tue Nov 21, 2006. According to The National Institutes of Health:


—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.106.69.155 (talk • contribs)

I don't think this contradicts the information in the article. The lead section says that the cold— i.e. the infection itself—lasts 3 to 5 days and that the symptoms (coughing) can last for 3 weeks. Likewise, the cited text says that the symptoms last up to two weeks. The only discrepency here is whether it's 2 or 3 weeks (but I guess that's a reasonable margin of error for a very general estimate). —LestatdeLioncourt 11:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's just me, but my colds are always 1 to 3 days in length and the symptoms never last more than a week. I'm skeptical of the lengths cited, but I'm aware that it's probably different for everybody. -Rolypolyman 14:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Mortality

The following section concerns me: "Contrary to popular belief, scientists have now found that new strains of the virus can be deadly to the very young and elderly. Death is quite rare, and only 1 in 1 million healthy test subjects suffered death, but it is not impossible. This is much more common in the most vulnerable: the young, the elderly, and those recovering from surgery. In these cases, 1 in 50,000 test subjects died (note: the experiments were carried out on chimps, but the results in humans would probably be very similar)." Firstly, the statement does not have a citation. Secondly, I doubt the statements are accurate as presented. What new strains of the cold are deadly? When did 1 million chimps participate in a study of new strains? How does the chimp data relate to the young, old or immunocompromised. Certainly there are people who are so sick and frail that a serious upper respiratory infection can lead to death without proper supportive care, but it does not have to do with new strains or healthy people. I feel strongly that this statement does not belong in the article.

Hmmm.... -- Possibly related to RSV (??) (also see Falsey, Ann R. (July 13, 2000). "Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection in Adults". Clinical Microbiology Reviews. 13 (3): 371–384. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)) -- Boracay Bill 06:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


RSV infection may seem similar to the Common Cold (especially if you are not an infant or frail person), however, physicians call RSV infection Bronchiolitis. As such, I don't think that this section belongs in the intro to the Common Cold. 134.174.178.112 16:19, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup of "Treatment" section

There's a "may require cleanup" tag on the Treatment section. Any ideas about what the tagger has in mind? It seems to me to be a pretty nice and clear section; the intro especially is good. There's an obvious error in the "Antibiotics" subsection reference to fungi, which I will fix. HEL 18:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Eccles's study

"the study is seriously flawed because the researchers used symptom questionnaires instead of actual infection detection and failed to check whether the participants were already infected or not."

I think that in order to be neutral, we should rather say that the results are controversial (if Prof. Smith questions the accuracy of a study by Prof. Doe, what allows us to give more weight to Smith's opiniion than to Doe's)? I think the point in Eccles's study is that it assumes that a low temperatures does not help the infection itself, but the symptoms of common cold: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pulmonary/URIstheFlu/tb1/2136 and also, perhaps because they are not sure which virus they should look for, because common cold can be caused by different viruses (Eccles thinks that a flaw in previous studies, which concluded there was no link between temperature and common cold, was that subjects were inoculated which only one specific virus). Anyway, if I understand well, the results of Eccles are based on self-reports by subjects, which can be a flaw. I think that instead of a few lines in a newspaper, the WP article should at least give the references of the original paper, and a link to the abstract if the full text is not available (I don't know how to write in the References section, in WP style, something like "I know this is the original paper, but I contributed to the article only on the basis of the paper's summary and the commentaries I read in various places") Apokrif 20:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

How many infections per year is common?

From the introduction:

It is the most common of all human diseases, infecting adults at an average rate of 2–4 infections per year, and school-aged children as many as 12 times per year. Infection rates greater than three infections per year per person are not uncommon in some populations.

That last sentence seems out of place; it reads as though "three" is higher than "2-4" or "12". If the average is 2-4, then why would it be necessary to mention that 3 is 'not uncommon'? ReddShadoe 21:54, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Cochrane meta-analysis: Vitamin C and the Common Cold (FYI)

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2004 Oct 18;(4):CD000980.

Update of: Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2000;(2):CD000980.

Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold.Douglas RM, Hemila H, D'Souza R, Chalker EB, Treacy B.

National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, 34 Nungara Place, Aranda, ACT, Australia, 2614.

BACKGROUND: The role of oral vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in the prevention and treatment of the common cold has been a subject of controversy for at least sixty years. Public interest in the topic continues to be high and vitamin C continues to be widely sold and used as a preventive and therapeutic agent for this common ailment. OBJECTIVES: To discover whether oral vitamin C in doses of 200 mg or more daily, reduces the incidence, duration or severity of the common cold when used either as continuous prophylaxis or after the onset of cold symptoms. SEARCH STRATEGY: This updated review added to earlier searches, a full search of the following electronic databases: the Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library Issue 2, 2004); MEDLINE (January 1966 to June 2004); and EMBASE (1990 to June 2004). SELECTION CRITERIA: Papers were excluded if a dose less than 200 mg daily of vitamin C was used; if there was no placebo comparison; if methods of outcome assessment were inadequately described; and if the report did not record any of the three study outcomes (incidence, duration or severity) in sufficient detail to enter into the meta-analysis. Three criteria of study quality were assessed: Jadad scores, placebo distinguish-ability, and allocation concealment. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed trial quality. 'Incidence' of colds during prophylaxis was assessed as the proportion of participants experiencing one or more colds during the study period. 'Duration' was the mean days of illness of cold episodes and 'severity' of these episodes was assessed by days confined indoors, off work or school. or by symptom severity scores. MAIN RESULTS: Twenty-nine trial comparisons involving 11,077 study participants contributed to the meta-analysis on the relative risk (RR) of developing a cold while taking prophylaxis. The pooled RR was 0.96 (95% CI 0.92 to 1.00). A subgroup of six trials that involved a total of 642 marathon runners, skiers, and soldiers on sub-arctic exercises reported a pooled RR of 0.50 (95%CI 0.38 to 0.66).Thirty comparisons that involved 9,676 respiratory episodes contributed to the meta-analysis on common cold duration during prophylaxis . A consistent benefit was observed, representing a reduction in cold duration of 8% (95% CI 3% to 13%) for adult participants and 13.5% (95% CI 5% to 21%) for child participants.Fifteen trial comparisons that involved 7,045 respiratory episodes contributed to the meta-analysis of severity of episodes experienced while on prophylaxis. The pooled results revealed a difference favouring those on vitamin C when days confined to home and off work or school were taken as a measure of severity (p = 0.02), and when restricting to studies which used symptom severity scores (p = 0.16), and for the both measures of severity combined (p = 0.004).Seven trial comparisons that involved 3,294 respiratory episodes contributed to the meta-analysis of cold duration during therapy with vitamin C that was initiated after the onset of cold symptoms, and no significant difference from placebo was seen.Four trial comparisons that involved 2,753 respiratory episodes, contributed to the meta-analysis of cold severity during therapy and no significant difference from placebo was seen.In laboratory studies, differing methods of artificial transmission of virus to vitamin C or placebo treated volunteers in residential experiments gave different results. Volunteers infected by nasal installation showed small or no benefit from vitamin C, whereas a group who were infected more naturally, reported less severe symptom severity scores (p = 0.04). REVIEWERS' CONCLUSIONS: The failure of vitamin C supplementation to reduce the incidence of colds in the normal population indicates that routine mega-dose prophylaxis is not rationally justified for community use. But evidence shows that it could be justified in persons exposed to brief periods of severe physical exercise and/or cold environments. Also, the consistent and statistically significant small benefits on duration and severity for those using regular vitamin C prophylaxis indicates that vitamin C plays some role in respiratory defence mechanisms. The trials in which vitamin C was introduced at the onset of colds as therapy did not show any benefit in doses up to 4 grams daily, but one large trial reported equivocal benefit from an 8 gram therapeutic dose at onset of symptoms.

PMID 15495002 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alan2012 (talk • contribs) 16:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC).

Probability of catching a cold

"control group who were not exposed to the chill had a 1 in 10 chance (this probability corresponds with the implausible 1 in 239 chance of surviving a year without catching a cold)" Where does this 1 in 239 chance come from? Apokrif 22:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. None of the listed chances appear anywhere in the reference articles. Perhaps this should be removed to the talk page until a suitable reference can be found. The Wilschon 22:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I understand where the 239 came from; it's a basic application of statistics. The 239 came from the fact that (1-1/10)52 = 1/239, with the 52 being the number of weeks in a year. However, the experiment was actually done over 5 days, not a week, and it was 9% of the control group that developed symptoms, not 1/10, which results in the 239 figure not being very accurate. The 239 figure isn't in the original reference, so it must have just been calculated by an editor. I just now made the numbers in the article reflect the actual numbers in the experiment, and just got rid of the 1 in 239 aside.
The number of people who developed symptoms in the control group is not particularly unreasonable. 9% of a group developing cold symptoms in any given 5 day period corresponds to getting an average of 6.57 colds per year. The actual average is somewhere between 2-4 colds per year, so the 9% is a little on the high side, but not enormously so. My guess is that both the test group and the control group had to come in to the Common Cold Centre five or six times, which probably made both groups somewhat more likely than most people to have contact with people who have colds. This doesn't affect the important result of the experiment, which is that a significantly greater fraction of the test group developed cold symptoms than did the control group. MrRedact 00:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Translations of foreign-language names for "cold" please

The chart found under "Cold" as a misnomer would be immensely more informative if translations to English were included. The Wilschon 22:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"Kaze" means "wind", not cold, so the Japanese name is related to the symptom of sneezing, not the cause, and certainly not cold as a cause. 'Kaze o hiku' means 'to pull wind', kind of implying that you're shooting air from your nose like arrows from a bow.

Sources?

Before pathology, it states:

Contrary to popular belief, scientists have now found that new strains of the virus can be deadly to the very young and elderly. Death is quite rare, and only 1 in 1 million healthy test subjects suffered death, but it is not impossible. This is much more common in the most vulnerable: the young, the elderly, and those recovering from surgery. In these cases, 1 in 50,000 test subjects died (note: the experiments were carried out on chimps, but the results in humans would probably be very similar).

And yet there are no citations for any of this, leading me to believe that this paragraph is either false, or up in the air.

There's also plenty other parts that need sources as well.

This paragraph, which was added by Jp kiddo on 2/5/07, appears to be subtle vandalism. I will remove it. MrRedact 20:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Cold v.s. Fever

Why is this disease called the Cold, while the other (which is actually a symptom, but let's forget that) called a Fever? Is one caught often as a result of being in cold surroundings, or results in the body having lower temperatures; whereas the other a result of being surrounded by too much heat, or results in the body being hot afterwards?

I know a fever is probably called that because it's symptoms are high body temp., and intolerance of cold temperatures. But the Common Cold is often viewed as a sort of "opposite" to the fever in society; was wondering if there is any truth to this view -- is the Cold called that because it results in lower body temp., or maybe it is CAUSED by cold temperatures? It doesn't appear to be a mirror of the fever.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.12.38.25 (talk • contribs)

Abnormally low body temperature is known as hypothermia, but it is not technically the "opposite" of fever—hyperthermia is (see the relevant articles for more detail). Colds are not caused by cold temperatures. This is a common misconception. It's just that people usually associate cold (as a medical condition) with cold temperature for various reasons. By the way, your question would probably be more appropraitely placed on the Reference Desk. —LestatdeLioncourt 15:10, 20 March 2007 (UTC)~

Coca-cola as a remedy?

Somebody had removed [citation needed] for this entry: "Coca-cola boiled with a lemon then drunk, can help with colds by warming your body temperature and caffeine helps performance and also usuable on cold days, better results if drunk just before bed." I believe a little more discussion should be made first, because the entry is not very rational. For instance, why would a lemon do such a difference? Does Coca-cola earm your body temperature? And even if it did, why would that relieve cold symptoms? However, as written earlier, "Coffee, or its active component, caffeine, has also been shown to improve mood and mental performance during rhinovirus infection.". Nevertheless, coffee is a better source of caffeine than Coca-cola, which therefore renders Coca-cola redundant in this case. Finally, why would it be best just before bed? Eiher the entry should be scientific proven by trials on people, or it should be rationally deductable. Mikael Häggström 07:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

American Lung Assoc recommends avoiding caffeine drinks. I have started work on this section and will continue later G716 06:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Ignoring any statements from the ALA, or any other US/UK medical group (I'm not going to debate the factuality or lack-there-of of their information here) there is much information from the natural and herbal medical groups, including the Chinese Centre for Medical Progress (Hong Kong, 1992) and the American Natural Remedies Group (USA, 2003) ,that shows various benefits of avoiding refined, chemically modified/created sugars while suffering from a cold infection. That would be a reliable reason to avoid Coca-Cola and other non-natural soda drinks. Lostinlodos (talk) 09:04, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Tamagozake

I removed Tamagozake as a home remedy as use of alcohol is specifically not recommended in some of the authoritative references. The Tamagozake page, only cites a blog and a recipe web page.G716 07:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Tone issues

The recently added home remedy, Garlic, is not written in a formal tone - it reads more like something your grandmother might say than an encyclopaedia entry. D4g0thur 12:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Interferon-containing lozenges

I have removed the statement "Interferon-containing lozenges are currently being investigated as an alternative method of delivery." as I can find no reliable source. Amarillo Biosciences appears to be the only company developing interferon-containing lozenges, but not for the cold G716 07:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review

I have brought this article to Good Article Review for review and possible delisting of its Good Article status. G716 07:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Delisted from Good Article status

Here are the comments from Good Article Review:

Nomination for delisting due to:

  • many sections are very poorly referenced and there appear to be many unverifiable statements
  • the pathology section discusses transmission, not the pathology
  • the treatment section is poorly organized -- a mix of approved OTC drugs for symptom relief, palliative patient care, unproven supplements, experimental antiviral drugs, and folklore. G716 07:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delist
    • The lead is currently an introduction rather than a summary of the article. It introduces information not expanded on in the article and also lacks any information from 'Prevention', 'Treatment', 'History', and '"Cold" as a misnomer'. This needs to be corrected per WP:LEAD.
    • Wikification of words like "nuclei" and "asymptomatic" per WP:CONTEXT, and US$" and "GB£" per WP:DATE#Currency. Removal of inconsistent wikification of years, decades, and centuries considering they don't really add context per WP:DATE#Dates.
    • The article is currently riddled with fact tags and cleanup templates.
    • The second half is very listy/stubby.
    • References are not consistently formatted, which is preferred by criteria 2b.
    • The article would benefit from some images as well. LaraLoveT/C 16:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

G716 01:52, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, this review wasn't archived properly, but there ya go, it was delisted. Homestarmy 21:43, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


Latin meaning of Nasopharyngitis

Naso means nose or nasal, Pharybg is the part of the neck or throat, the alimentary canal between the palate and the esophagus, itis inflammation of

So in my understanding, Nasopharyngitis translated in Modern simply english is Inflammation of the nose in the alimentary canel of the neck or throat Elantrix 30/6/07

Home remedy - Garlic

I marked this dubious. I realize that effectiveness of home remedies, aside from placebo effect, are probably expected to be dubious. The bit about "... the fumes of the garlic will soak through your system during the night" is a bit much, though. -- Boracay Bill 03:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Didn't you see that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? :-) Axl 21:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Treatment Section

I reorganized order of treatment section as follows: 

==Treatment==
  ===Palliative Care===
  ===Antibiotics===
  ===Antivirals===
  ===Over-the-Counter Symptom Medicines===
  ===Herbal Remedies===
     ====Echinacea====
  ===Other===
     ====Vitamin C====
     ====Zinc Preparations====
     ====Interferons====
     ====Steam Inhalation====
     ====Chicken Soup====
     ====Home Remedies====

G716 16:25, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Steam Inhalation

The Italian - English Dictionary at WorldReference.com doesn't translate suffumigio, but lists suffumigare meaning fumigate G716 19:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


Home remedies

I removed this section. All that is left are the following unsourced items. I'll be willing to add back in if anyone comes up with reliable sources.

  • nebulized medicinal mixtures
  • hot compresses
  • Eating spicy food can help alleviate congestion, although it may also irritate the already-tender throat.

G716 05:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

How about making a branced-off page; "Common Cold: Home Remedies." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.122.193 (talk) 18:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Cold Season in Brazil

I am Brazilian myself and never heard of anything like widespread cold during hot seasons, quite the opposite, as it would be expected. Could anybody find any reference for that claim? (it's in the end of the article) Otherwise, I think it would be appropriate to delete that paragraph.

Unreferenced text removed -- I could find no source on the web for this claim. I am wiling to replace if anyone finds a reliable sourceG716 22:15, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Incubation period conflict

This article says the incubation period is 1-3 days, but the rhinovirus article specifically says 8-10 hours. So which is it? -Rolypolyman 14:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Difference was onset of symptoms and time to peak symptoms —G716 <T·C> 04:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Cold as misnomer: Cardiff study mischaracterized?

Current text:

In a widely-publicized, but flawed, experiment, researchers at the Common Cold Centre at the Cardiff University attempted to demonstrate that cold temperatures can lead to a greater susceptibility to viral infection.[58] In the experiment, 29% of a group of 90 people who sat with their feet in ice-cold water for 20 minutes a day for five days developed cold symptoms during the five days, while 9% of a control group of 90 people who were not similarly exposed developed symptoms. However, when interviewed on NPR, Dr. Ronald Turner (University of Virginia) pointed out a flaw in the study: the experiment only recorded symptoms and not actual viral infections.[59]

It did not attempt what is said; abstract says "This study will test the hypothesis that acute cooling of the feet causes the onset of common cold symptoms." The cited "flaw," that it recorded symptoms and not viral infections, was no flaw: testing viral infection was not the intent of the experiment, and was was clearly stated in the study's objectives and conclusion. It's a rigorous study, with full text freely available online; it clearly delineates between reported symptoms, or reported belief one has a cold, versus actually having a respiratory infection. The doctor cited in an NPR.org article for pointing out the "flaw" was briefly quoted explaining the study (that it had nothing to do with virology) but was not quoted as saying the study was flawed; my impression is that the article's author viewed it as a flaw, and may have misinterpreted the doctor to be saying the study was flawed. Whatever the case, I think this particular NPR.org article, primarily about why kids don't want to wear coats, should not be taken as a reliable source in judging the scientific validity of the study.

There is also no cited source that the study was widely-publicized. While I don't doubt it, and I don't doubt its findings would be widely misinterpreted and/or misreported, a source should be provided for those claims, or they should not be claimed. I am modifying the paragraph as follows:

Researchers at the Common Cold Centre at the Cardiff University conducted a study to "test the hypothesis that acute cooling of the feet causes the onset of common cold symptoms."[4] In the experiment, 14.4% of a group of 90 people who sat with their feet in ice-cold water for 20 minutes twice a day for four or five days reported cold symptoms within five days of the procedure, while just 5.6% of a control group of 90 people who were not similarly exposed reported cold symptoms. The study measured the subjects' self-reported cold symptoms, and belief they had a cold; not whether an actual respiratory infection developed. It concludes that the onset of common cold symptoms can be caused by acute chilling of the feet, but that "further studies are needed to determine the relationship of symptom generation to any respiratory infection."

-Agyle 23:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed numbers above; 14.4% vs 5.6% reported belief they had a cold, while 28.8% vs 8.8% reported cold symptoms. Also, the NPR article from the prior text, which I removed as a source, is here. -Agyle 23:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read the full text of this paper, but the abstract states: "180 healthy subjects were randomized to receive either a foot chill or control procedure." Presumably, this means that the study was not blinded to treatment, also reducing the validity of the conclusions.

Also, NPR may not be the best ref, but Dr Turner is an authority on colds.[4] However, I like your summary of the study, with the caveat that the author thinks further studies are needed.

—G716 <T·C> 04:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, that's another limitation of the study; the control group put their feet in empty bowls of air twice a day! I hope they do conduct further research; tracking actual infections would make the "blindness" of the study less important. Note that the reference (generated by cite journal) actually has two links, one to doi.org, one to nih.gov; both give an abstract, but the page from the doi.org has an option to see the full article for free. It's tempting to remove the PMID from the "cite journal" data so that it won't display the second, less useful link. -Agyle 05:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing out the link to the free full text. I've added the url to the citation in the article. Regards —G716 <T·C> 01:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

There are other criticisms on de: de:Diskussion:Erkältung#Forscher der Universität Cardiff... (Quelle) Apokrif 20:41, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Symptoms

Removed mis-placed text

Between one-third and one-half of all people exposed to a cold virus become infected; 75% of the infected population show symptoms, which start 1–2 days after infection.
After a common cold, a sufferer develops immunity to the particular virus. This immunity offers only limited protection against the many other cold viruses. The person, therefore, can easily be infected by a different cold virus.
(removed citation is: Jackson GG, Dowling HF, Spiesman IG, Boand AV (1958). "Transmission of the common cold to volunteers under controlled conditions. I. The common cold as a clinical entity". A.M.A. archives of internal medicine. 101 (2): 267–78. PMID 13497324.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link))

First sentence refers to experimental infection, not natural infection (which is what this section is about), and second sentence is in wrong place —G716 <T·C> 03:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Headache and Fever

The article currently states that headache and fever are rare symptoms of colds. P&G Health reports these symptoms as occurring in 20-60% of cases.

Fixed. Cited refs differ slightly in opinion about headache -- consensus appears to be that headache occurs sometimes, not rarely. Fever is rare in colds. —G716 <T·C> 04:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Missing Symptoms

Dizziness (usually due to excessive nose blowing), skin sensitivity, loss of appitite, dehydration, sore throat, greatly decreased sences of scent & taste, increased sensitivity to light, & time seems to drag slowly on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.122.193 (talk) 18:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

These appear to be personal anecdotal observations, not documented, common symptoms. —G716 <T·C> 04:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

In the phrase "Vitamin C megadosage", the entire phrase was linked to the article Vitamin C megadosage, but an anon IP changed it to link to Vitamin C and Vitamin C megadosage separately (using the formatting Vitamin C megadosage). I can see the rationale for either approach, and tend to favor using a single internal link as a reader may otherwise be unaware that there are two distinct links. I've seen similar situations before, but don't know of any WP guidelines on the matter. I'd be curious to read opinions, or a link to a WP guideline. I'm reverting to a single link for now. -Agyle 16:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Transmission

In his autobiography James Lovelock describes work he did (for UK Medical Research Councl) that establishes aeolian transport plays no role (Andrewes, C.H., Lovelock, J.E. and Sommerville, T. 1951. An experiment on the transmission of colds. Lancet, 260, 25.). As I recall sufferers were found to pass the virus on only when they played cards together. Contact with infected surfaces seemed, in his work, to be the key. Can any expert confirm this and make the necessary correction? Could the transmission of flu be similarly restricted?--Nick Green 22:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

A PubMed search lists lots of research on transmission of rhinovirus. Secondary ref #6 in the article lists both aerosol and contact as modes of transmission. Regards—G716 <T·C> 23:25, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Horses

Is it not true that the common cold originated from horses? Helpsloose 11:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Actual medical research towards a cure?

Does anyone know which organizations are conducting scientific research with the common cold? I mean, come on! We have computers. We have sequenced the human genome. What, are they trying to concoct a vaccine using an abacus?!? Sevenzark 7 (talk) 22:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC) Sevenzark 7 11/22/07

See Pleconaril Regards—G716 <T·C> 02:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Nowhere in this article does it state why people get repitions of the common cold.

Why do people get the common cold up to 20-30 times or more in their life when the articcle states that only 5 diseases cause symptoms of the common cold? Would the body be immune to any common cold like viruses after being in contact with those first 5 viruses? Spitfire (talk) 16:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

added note on number of serotypes of rhinovirus —G716 <T·C> 22:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
The viruses mutate too fast and often for your immune system to matter. All that your immune system can do is make you immune to the last flavor that came by. The problem is you rarely see the same set of mutations. I don't know how many genes a virus has to mutate with but say it has five possible mutated versions, and there are five different viruses, you could get the cold 25 different times. I am guessing the viruses have the ability to mutate way more. Dachande (talk) 13:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

cold and common cold

I don't remember the name of the researchers or the institution where the research was performed, but i had seen something on TV about the relation between cold and common cold. No, it is not the cold itself that makes people sick, but it does lower resistance. When for example, your chest is exposed to cold, extra blood goes there to keep it warm. But some of this blood comes from around your nasal cavities where it was previously, through the anti-bodies, keeping the resident 'common-cold-virus' at bay. With the resulting lack of anti-bodies, the virus is not resisted and you get sick. Has anyone else heard of this?

Rachid12051 (talk) 19:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Interesting -- if you find a reliable source for the research, I'll summarize for the article. —G716 <T·C> 01:04, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The Cost Of The Common Cold & Influenza

Please state in the image caption with which country and which war this "Wartime poster" is associated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.48.52 (talk) 08:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Done—G716 <T·C> 04:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

Unfortunately, this article does not meet the Good Article criteria at the present time, and in fact, is still quite a long ways off. There are numerous organizational issues with the article; most notably, it appears that there are too many subsections and sub-sub-sections that could probably be combined or reorganized for clarity. For starters, I'd put 'prevention' and 'treatment' closer together. Make sure that the treatments listed there are actually treatments of actual symptoms of the common cold. Some of the ones listed actually appear to be preventative, such as Vitamin C.

What is the purpose of the 'exposure to cold weather'; seems like this could go into a section on the causes or pathology.

The 'economic cost' section is pretty specific to the US, and isn't inclusive of other nations; thereby, the 'worldwide view' tag that's there still applies. This must be settled prior to GA status.

While the references used in the article appear to be reasonably good and reliable sources, there's still a lot of sections and material that is insufficiently cited. Any 'citation needed' tags must also be resolved for GA as well.

The article's images, while appropriately tagged, are not organized very well, particularly towards the beginning of the article, and around the 'economic cost' section. They seem to be kind of crammed in there, like there's too many, or maybe this is an indication that there's not enough actual text in the article, so it needs expansion there. It might also help to put the table of contents where it should be placed by default (to the left and immediately after the summary/lead section, instead of at the right underneath the infobox).

The 'symptoms' and 'complications' sections could use some significant expansion, as well as the lead section. The lead should provide a good summary of the article; it might help to review WP:LEAD for tips here.

Check the Medical Manual of Style for guidelines and templates on how medically-related articles on diseases should look, and specifically what sections that need to be included that may be missing. The article, at present, is not in compliance with WP:MEDMOS.

Hope this helps improve the article. This may not be a complete listing of every individual issue, but hopefully will give editors some guidelines towards getting it up to standards. Once the article meets the key criteria listed at WP:WIAGA, and is probably at least around 85-90% compliant with WP:MEDMOS, I think it can be promoted to GA quite easily. Cheers! Dr. Cash (talk) 03:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Impending Doom?

"a sense of impending doom..."

Is that really a symptom? Maybe it should be removed. Sixium (talk) 05:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

To whoever changed "dollars" to "money" in the intro

Would you believe I was struggling to find a word for "dollars" but "money" just didn't come to me? Probably becauase I HAVE A FREAKING COLD!. Thanks for your help - good edit!139.48.81.98 (talk) 21:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

H

"Herbs often used in homeopathic cold remedies". Using herbs in remedy makes it herbal, not homeopathic? Victordk13 (talk) 21:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The Why of Symptoms

It might be nice to include an explanation of why a cold causes the symptoms it does, such as achiness and sore throat (especially the early signs). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.14.57.240 (talk) 23:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Steam Inhalation

How can you have a placebo-controlled double-blind test on steam inhalation? What was the placebo? AngleWyrm (talk) 01:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Steam inhalation? Bringing 212+ deg F air into the nasal cavities sounds like a recipe for disaster. -Rolypolyman (talk) 23:33, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

International remedies

Wouldn't it be a good idea to include various nations' traditions in using natural remedies in treating the common cold? For example: the Americans traditionally believe that chicken soup does the trick, in the UK it's honey and lemon juice mixed with hot water, in Germany it's fennel tea with honey, in Russia it's milk, garlic and honey. Any thoughts? Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 05:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Immunity to the Common Cold?

Removed the reference to plastic to be more compatible with the source provided.

Darydale (talk) 16:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Cold FX

Somebody should add something about Cold FX, its allowed to make claims about shortening the length of colds, whereas most of those herbs have far less proven evidence. In Canada its clinically proven to reduce the duration of cold symptoms.24.65.42.159 (talk) 02:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Immunity to the common cold?

In the paragraph under 'Virus' there is a reference to the ability to gain complete immunity to the common cold 'by eating nothing but plastic'. The website link that is given as a reference for this does not mention plastic. Is the entry a typo or a misinterpretation of the sited reference website? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.242.47.51 (talk) 13:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Is common cold the most widespread illness in the world (save for perhaps, malnutrition, not just due to poverty, but also due to eating disorders, junk food, fad diets, etc.)? Surely, no living organism is immune to it. Does the article also mention as to how many people in the world might be suffering from common cold at one given time?59.184.189.65 (talk) 07:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The viruses are polymorphic. There are more than 100 different varieties at any given time and although a certain level of immunity may develop to a single one following infection, to be immune, you'd have to be exposed to every single variation of the virus and produce an immune response to it. Given than a few more appear from mutations each year and a few old ones fade into rarity, developing a vaccine of lots of different ones would be unfeasable as most new infections are from the newest mutants and there are already too many varieties. (I've tried to avoid words like "strain", "type", "class" in this paragraph to avoid confusion as you have to be very careful with such words to avoid making mistakes and I'm too lazy to double check I got them right).--KX36 (talk) 10:44, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Andrographis

What about andrographis? Consumer Reports' Natural Medicine Ratings (subscription required) rates it as "possibly effective."

--Cory Fryling (talk) 00:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Coronavirus

The page currently seems to say that one of the main causes for a common cold is a coronavirus. I was taught in medical school that coronavirus does not (usually) affect humans, and that's why it took so long to track down the virus in SARS. Perhaps the article should note this. At the moment someone could look at this and think there's a 50:50 chance their cold is a rhinovirus or a coronavirus.--KX36 (talk) 11:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

According to one of the two cited references, coronavirus may cause up to 15% of colds—G716 <T·C> 01:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Epidemiology

The statement "The seasonality may be due to the start of the school year..." has been taken from the USA government website: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In Australia, the school year starts in February, a hot summer month. Colds and flu are prevalent in colder periods, just like elsewhere but albeit during different months of a year. I see no causal link between the start of the school year and the onset of "cold season".Outback1964 (talk) 12:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Etiology

Etiology is all wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.195.132 (talk) 23:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Fixed - reverted to last stable version —G716 <T·C> 23:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Cold-fX

Shouldn't there be some mention of Cold-fX? 216.239.234.196 (talk) 16:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes maybe under alternative treatments that have no evidence for them.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Weight

There is an issue with how much is write about alternative treatments. None of which have good support. This section should be reduced. Reviews rather than primary research should be referenced. Will work on this.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Have fixed it. Still lots of work needed.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Under "Symptoms"...

What is this bit about?

<In fact, recent sources a Ms Allegra Nespoli as having contracted the virus for up to 6 months on her move to an unspecified burough of London (Old London Town). Hospital records have never been officially recovered but sources close to the government alluded to the incident in several revealing interviews with early morning interviewer Tim Westwood.>

76.213.243.124 (talk) 03:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Highly contagious

I disagree with the use of the word 'highly contagious' as research has shown it to be not very contagious.

According to the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University, on webpage:

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/biosi/subsites/cold/commoncold.html

There is a paragraph that says:

Common cold viruses are not very contagious

Despite the fact that very few of us escape from at least a couple of common cold infections each year, common cold viruses are not very contagious. Under laboratory conditions when healthy volunteers are kept with others who are suffering from common cold infections it has proven remarkably difficult to spread infection from one person to another.

Source: Andrewes C. The Common Cold. New York: Norton, 1965:187.

Is there any research to suggest it is 'highly contagious'?

Chikong (talk) 22:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Exposure to cold weather

This New Scientist article http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12808-cold-weather-really-does-spread-flu.html quotes a study which says the temperature does play a role. Can someone with relevant expertise take a look this and consider it's implications for this article? 203.161.83.161 (talk) 08:46, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Means of Infection

I have a challenge for myself and anyone who considers themselves informed about the "common cold." Find research (a primary source) that demonstrates that hand washing reduces infection. There certainly isn't any on this page. What we have is, instead, a reference to a news article about research on influenza, wherein someone parrots the conventional "wisdom" that colds are transmitted by touch.

It makes no sense that colds are transmitted by touch for this simple reason: People wash their hands about the same amount year round. But colds are highly seasonal. This is the best "research" on this question I have found so far.

Michael Layton 2009-04-03 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.240.77 (talk) 04:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

2nd generation antihistamines.

The article reference does not support the claim that 2nd generation antihistamine drugs are not useful for a cold symptoms. The drugs merely do not cross the blood brain barrier and a cold virus does not attack the brain anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.155.225.190 (talk) 05:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what you are getting at.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Its pretty clear I think. 2nd generation antihistamines do have some utility in treating cold symptoms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.137.80.244 (talk) 06:18, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The reference says "Antihistamines won’t help someone with a cold.". Which means the article should have not narrowed it to 2nd generation drugs. Here is a better reference.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17323712

"Antihistamines and combination antihistamine/decongestant therapies can modestly improve symptoms in adults; however, the benefits must be weighed against potential side effects. Newer nonsedating antihistamines are ineffective against cough." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.137.80.244 (talk) 06:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You would agree with the above article. These drugs have limited effectiveness and are not effective for the cough. May help with nasal congestion.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

More fuel for the discussion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2529799 I only have access to the abstract: "Evaluations by both subjects and physicians suggest that this antihistamine/decongestant combination is superior to placebo in relieving symptoms of the common cold. Specific differences were found in symptoms including nasal congestion, sneezing, postnasal drainage, and nasal discharge." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erik Neves (talk • contribs) 21:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am confused in this problem too. But I found this link [5] supporting this theory that 2nd generation antihistamines fail to treat cold symptoms. The only problem left now is that if the source is reliable. And if it is true, why exactly the non-sedating drug can not treat cold symptoms but allergy one. Walter Smith (talk) 15:34, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Alternative Treatments

A new section was created on Alternative Treatments. I replaced the text with new text. My change was reverted, and I received the following comment on my Talk page:

Dear user, Your recent edit in common cold was reverted, since there was no solid discussion on "Alternative treatment for common cold" on the talk page of this article as you mentioned there is, in your "edit summary". In your edit, you deleted a large section and just claimed that such treatment does not exist. Well, although I may agree with you, but I should mention that we can not just delete a section and add out self idea. The section that you deleted also had references. What you can do, is you add your statement with its citation to the previouse section but please do not delete statements from the articles without a solid discussion. I appreciate your attention Parvazbato59 (talk) 16:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

  • I noticed that you discussed it in another article here. This is the problem. One can not address an issue on another article and simply delete a section by addressing it there. But I am sure you were unaware of it. What you can do, is to do the same discussion in the talk page of common cold by opeining a new section and naming it "Alternative treatment for common cold". Then you can modify the text under that section, but still, I insist you can not delete the statements with references, eventhough they are against what we think". I know that alternative treatments maynot be scientific, but as you know, some of the medicines that we use today, come from the common "herbs". Sicnece is not perfect. Thanks Parvazbato59 (talk) 16:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed I should have replicated the discussion from the other page here. My reason was to avoid having two different ongoing debates. I'm happy to provide my rationale here.

That said, I disagree with Parvazbato's change. First, I didn't delete the newly added section, I corrected it. Second, the information was medically suspect. Third, "science is not perfect" is not a useful argument. And fourth, the "references" that Parvazabato mentions are not working links, and hence the sources cannot be checked for reputability, factual correctness, or even verification that the text here accurately represents what is written in the cited source. For all of these reasons, I do not agree with Parvazbato's reversion.

In addition, my statement which was deleted by Parvazbato, clearly said that CAM treatments for the common cold are not supported by solid scientific evidence, and included a reputable source backing up that claim. So I insist that my statement be added back to the article. Leaving the remainder (added by Romarin) is, in my opinion, flat out wrong as it is not scientifically valid information. To avoid an edit war, I will leave it for now, with caveats. However, if sources which are not easily checked are not provided to backup these claims, I favor deleting the list of CAM treatments as anecdotal and improper.

As of right now, I take exception with and will change the following wording:

Few alternative treatments have been the subject of rigorous scientific research, and so for many of these, evidence is primarily historical and/or anecdotal.

This is not a correct statement. There have been plenty of tests of alternative treatments, and the prevailing scientific consensus is that none of them are effective against the common cold. I reference the American Lung Association as one reputable source of this fact (see article citation). In addition, in science and medicine, when evidence for something is merely anecdotal (or "historical," whatever that is supposed to mean), that means that it lacks evidence, and is not supported by scientific study.

My new version is now saved. --Transity (talk) 17:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

As the original author of the alternative treatments paragraph, I would like to point out one thing. The text:
Many alternative treatments are used by people throughout the world. These can include herbs such as echinacea and calendula, other plants such as ginger and garlic, or vitamin supplements such as vitamin C.
says absolutely nothing with regards to the effectiveness of these treatments, only that such treatments are used throughout the world, which is a unarguable fact. The sentence that was then added:
However, none of these claims are supported by scientific evidence.
is logically unsound, since no claims were ever made in the previous sentence. I did not write anything that could be construed as "these alternatives work fabulously!" or anything of the sort. I only wrote that they are used. Is that the claim that is being called false? Does it take a clinical study to decide whether or not people use a particular treatment?
Furthermore, the previous subsections describing other forms of treatment aren't being subjected to the same scrutiny. Why pick on alternative treatments? There is conflicting evidence surrounding all forms of treatments, "alternative" or otherwise. The previous section, for example, states that:
Various cold medicines exist which claim to help relieve symptoms. They include mucolytics, expectorants, antitussives, and anticongestants.
There is no information to back this up, nothing about whether these claims are supported or not.
I am thus going to remove the sentence that was added in. There is information on the actual alternative treatments page about how these treatments haven't been "scientifically proven", and in keeping with the continuity of the rest of this article, it seems that that is a better place for such arguments than here. romarin [talk ] 18:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
You are correct on one point: your statement made no claims of effectiveness. However, your decision to then delete my statement is unacceptable. Accordingly, I have added it back, with the wording around "claims" now corrected to say:

However, the ability of these alternative remedies to treat the common cold is not supported by scientific evidence.

Now the statement takes your statement that many alternative treatments are used around the world, and states that, despite this usage, CAM as a treatment for the common cold is not supported by scientific evidence.
If you have a problem with other sections in this post not being properly cited, then by all means, go ask for references in those sections. That isn't a valid argument for not properly editing this section.
All that said, since you are the person who added the section in question, I would ask that you provide sources that can be easily checked. None of your sources have links, which makes them difficult to vet. --Transity (talk) 18:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay saying that the treatment is commonly used does in a way imply effectiveness which is why this statement must be followed with one stating that CAMs they are ineffective. Made some changes to reflect this.
Bringing up the fact that other statement do not have references to them means nothing with respect to this statement. I put a fact tag on the other stuff a while back. And will delete the bit on decongestents / mucolytics if evidence is not found. P.S. will look myself when I have time.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Cardiff University's page (referenced) is nothing but weasel words about possible evidence that is never revealed. For example:

There is some scientific evidence which indicates that Echinacea does affect our immune system by stimulating the activity of white blood cells.

Some studies have found this, others have not. More importantly, none have found that Echinacea does anything for the common cold. And that, I think, is the proper yardstick here. The same thing with Zinc:

It has also been proposed that zinc medications may coat the common cold viruses such as the rhinovirus and prevent them from attaching to the nasal cells .

That's a nice proposal and all, but even this page makes it obvious that it isn't even remotely proven. Also:

Recent research indicates that early treatment of common cold with zinc lozenges may shorten the duration of common cold symptoms by several days. However, there are several clinical trials that have reported that zinc lozenges are no more effective than placebo medicines.

So, in other words, the positive results here aren't able to be reliably replicated. Hence, it isn't supported by scientific evidence. I'm reverting this edit, and also adding references to a study associated with the NCCAM (who are usually biased toward alt med) which found no benefits to echinacea. --Transity (talk | contribs) 01:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
And what scientific evidence do the American Lung Association have for making their statement? I would like to read the research paper. 87.114.20.179 (talk) 08:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I think you should re-read what I posted, both here and in the article.
Here, I wrote how the Cardiff page doesn't actually claim that there is evidence for any of these things, and I showed a few examples to illustrate that point. Really, all they are saying is "hey, these things could work, so keep an open mind." That hardly constitutes a solid reference for anything. Then they reference a bunch of studies (without links to check them). But if the Cardiff page itself isn't claiming that there is proof that these things work, then we can assume that their studies also don't make that case (or else Cardiff would as well). That's why I felt the Cardiff reference wasn't useful.
In the article itself, I referenced a study done through the NCCAM and published in the NEJM on the effectiveness of echinacea for treating the common cold. The results of that study showed that echinacea didn't have any effect on the rate of infection, or the duration or severity of symptoms of the common cold, which is exactly what I stated in the article. I provided a link to the NEJM and the NCCAM pages that detail this study, and the results. So if you'd truly like to read a study showing that echinacea is useless for the common cold, please feel free to do so (just follow the links on the references in the article).
Finally, it isn't possible to cite a study to backup the claim that none of these remedies have been shown to be effective for treating the common cold. Should this statement only be allowed if it is accompanied by a reference to every single study ever conducted on these remedies? No. The burden of proof is on the person claiming that they are effective - that's how science works, and that's the standard that other non-alternative treatments are held to. I could claim that rubbing a poodle all over myself cures the cold, and add that to this page, along with a reference to someone saying that "it has been hypothesized that poodle massage helps sinus drainage, and thereby reduces the symptoms of the common cold," with no studies that actually backup that hypothesis. Who has the burden of proof there? Me, or the person who alters that text to say that there is no evidence backing up that claim? --Transity (talk | contribs) 14:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Agree with transity. We do not need more on this page about alternative treatments on this page. There is an entire page dedicated to discussing this issue.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The research is full of flaws. 87.114.20.179 (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The research is full of flaws? What research? What flaws? If you mean that the cited study on echinacea is flawed, please provide details of the flaws you've found in the study. I provided a link - go ahead and read it, and let us know what flaws you've found. Inadequate control groups? Improper blinding? Errors in the statistical analysis? I'm not aware of any of these, but if you've found flaws, then I'd certainly like to know about them.
However, right now, based on your brief comment, there's nothing anyone can do but ask for more details, and ignore you until you can provide them. Simply saying that "the research" is "full of flaws" isn't useful. --Transity (talk | contribs) 21:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Can you believe this: they spent millions on research and experiments on Echinacea angustifolia - a species with less alkamides. I am telling you, the research you are quoting is flawed. 87.114.160.43 (talk) 11:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
The NCCAM routinely spends gobs of money on trials of nonsensical treatments. That's their entire charter. If they didn't do so, they would have no reason to remain funded.
Assuming that alkamides are as important as you believe they are, it would seem that E. angustfolia contain higher levels than other varieties of echinacea (see Echinacea by Sandra Carol Miller, He-Ci Yu, page 132). So once again, please cite specific reasons why this study is flawed and backup your claims. --Transity (talk | contribs) 13:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/11/20/cold_remedies_that_really_work_update.htm
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