My family swears by the stuff. It’s supposed to improve your chance of not catching a cold when or shortly after being exposed. Problem is, it tastes nastey. Should I bother drinking it, or is it another one of those placebo dealies?
I have posted here with some cites showing that Zinc and echinacea have been shown in studies to be useful in helping your immune system.
IMHO you could do better by taking Zinc, Probiotics and echinacea seperately. Airborne has too much Vit C- if you take as directed you have consumed over 6 Grams of Vit C- a overdose. And it also has too much Vit A- again a full days dose of 6 tabs=30,000iu, three times the upper safe limit.
But…but…it was INVENTED BY A TEACHER!
(Not sure how getting 2nd graders to read “The Cat In The Hat” translates into medical expertise)
Cold FX has been demonstrated in clinical trials to boost the immune system and to shorten the duration of colds. In my own experience, it has completely prevented colds three times, including once when a cold had begun to get underway.
Interesting article about Airborne:
My favorite part is the “clinical trial” done by a “lab” that consisted of two people, one of whom lied about his qualifications.
How could you know that it “prevented a cold?” Maybe you just never would have gotten the cold anyway. Scams like this count on people making that exact kind of fallacious correlation. It’s like sticking beans in your ears to keep elephants away.
They tell you to use this crap whenever see somebody sneeze and you won’t get their cold. Most of the time you would never get the cold anyway but now they’ve got you making a false association between not getting the cold and using their product and concluding that their product stopped you from getting the cold. Or maybe they’ll tell it shortens the duration of a cold, but how would you know that either? Do colds have an official running time that you can clock and know that you’ve gotten over it early? Everybody always gets over colds sooner or later, usually sooner, so now they’ve got you making another false association between their fake medicine and your body getting over a mild infection the same way it always does.
DrDeth is right that a regular supplementary use of some vitamins and echinacea can help to boost the immune system but you can get those things separately and they won’t cure a cold once you get it.
On preview, Buckgully’s link is very good. It shows what a joke this product really is and how gullible people can be with a little bit of suggestion.
And, for the record, it’s not a great idea to try to get real information about a product from the product’s own webpage.
So how do you know it prevented the other two? Did you see the little viruses running away?
Scientific American recently looked further at “Airborne” and was not impressed.
“Cold-fx” has some limited research trial evidence behind it, but it’s less than overwhelming. Neither is the evidence for zinc.
The verdict on Echinacea preventing colds has been mixed, with studies including this one in Annals of Internal Medicine suggesting it didn’t help. I tend to take it for short periods anyway, especially before getting on a plane. I can’t say it definitely does anything, but I’m working on developing my powers of suggestion. 
A problem with Echinacea (and with herbal remedies in general) is that preparations vary widely and it’s hard to tell how much of the active ingredient (assuming there is one) that you’re getting.
Consumer Reports says no.
I have always understood that you can’t “overdose” on vitamin C in any practical way. Some people have experimented with vitamin C at 20,000 times the normal dose and it doesn’t hurt but it may not help either. You can definitely overdose on some types of vitamin A however with bad side effects.
I read somewhere that Echinacea is really only good for topical use and drinking it doesn’t do anything for you.
I’m not aware of any large-scale studies of people taking vitamin C megadoses, but there’s been concern about this practice increasing one’s risk of getting one type of kidney stone.
Because in my many years of getting cold, particulary as a sickly kid, I have experienced a set of symptoms which is unmistakable, as is the particular sensation in my sinuses and head when it’s a cold versus allergies or anything else.
Most people I know know what I’m talking about when I mention the feeling you get when you’re sick. It’s quite different from any other sensation. Well, I’ve had those feelings start and then stop after taking Cold FX. In the most recent occurrence, I sneezed and blew my nose the entire day at work. Inevitably, that means that I will get sicker. My head and nose already felt just exactly the way they do with a cold. I figured it was too late, but took the Cold FX anyway. And it worked. After a few hours, I had completely quit sneezing and blowing my nose. Never ever before has that happened. And no, it wasn’t something new in my environment. Same home, same office.
Yep. Pretty much five days for me. Often longer. The one cold I did get (first time I bought Cold FX was after I’d gotten sick) lasted three days. Period. No coughing after. Nothing. Again, that’s rare for me. For years and years I’d gotten coughs after colds - some turning to bronchitis. This time nothing.
Yeah, well that’s usually a good bit of advice, but when the site is quoting studies which have been published in recognized peer-reviewed journals like JAMA, then it’s another story.
See my other post. Anyway, WTF. Try it. It’s only ginseng. It won’t kill you. It’ll either work or it won’t. But have a read of the studies; there’s actual science behind it. I’m generally a skeptic about such things; never believed in echinacea - as it turns out with good reason, but Cold FX got tested and worked and it does work for me. I was skeptical when I tried it, too, and I’m still amazed at how it works but it does and that’s good enough for me.
I am a huge skeptic but I’ll chime in for Cold-FX. Someone gave it to me when I was comong down with a nasty cold and had a major presentation across the country in a couple of days. My symptoms began going away within 24 hours and were completely gone in 48. I read the trials and eventually bought stock in the company, making a lot of money.
I’ve used it ever since when symptoms show up, and it has never failed to help. I don’t get a lot of colds, maybe once or twice a season, so I’ve never taken it prophylactically like the hockey players do.
Yes, it’s a good article, but like all blogs it’s pissy and moany with a hint of tin foil hattery. I trust the author as much as Airborne’s corporate advertising machine. I wish there was a real trial done by a professional, non-biased orginization.
I used a link to their home page in case someone didn’t know what the product was. I didn’t realize what a national sensation it was.
Well, looks like the consensus is that Airborne is no better or worse than taking good ol’ OJ. Good, because Airborne tastes like pee, and OJ tastes like OJ.
Wiki sez:
"Adverse effects
While being harmless in most typical quantities, as with all substances to which the human body is exposed, vitamin C can still cause harm under certain conditions.
Common side-effects
Relatively large doses of vitamin C may cause indigestion, particularly when taken on an empty stomach. This unpleasant but harmless side-effect can be avoided by taking the vitamin along with meals or by offsetting its acidity by taking an antacid such as baking soda or calcium carbonate.
When taken in huge doses, vitamin C causes diarrhea. The minimum dose that brings about this effect varies with the individual. Robert Cathcart has called this limit the “bowel tolerance threshold” and observed that it is higher in people with serious illness than those in good health.[38] It ranges from 5 to 25 grams per day in healthy individuals to 300 grams per day in those that are severely ill. Diarrhea is not harmful, as long as the dose is reduced quickly.
[edit] Rare side-effects
As vitamin C enhances iron absorption, iron poisoning can become an issue to people with rare iron overload disorders, such as haemochromatosis. A genetic condition that results in inadequate levels of the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), can cause sufferers to develop hemolytic anemia after ingesting specific oxidizing substances, such as very large dosages of vitamin C. However, there is a test available for G6PD deficiency,[72] and it has been proposed that high doses of Vitamin E may protect against this problem.
[edit] Chance of overdose
As discussed previously, vitamin C exhibits remarkably low toxicity. The LD50 (the dose that will kill 50% of a population) is generally accepted to be 11900 milligrams per kilogram.[73] This means that for a 60 kilo (132 pound) human, one would need to administer 714,000 mg (714 g or 1.6 pounds) of vitamin C in order to stand a 50% chance of killing the person. However, vitamin C cannot result in death when taken orally as large amounts of the vitamin cause diarrhea and are not absorbed.[74] An extremely large amount of vitamin C would need to be rapidly injected in order to stand any chance of killing a person. Robert Cathcart declares that he has used intravenous doses of up to 250 grams with no adverse effects.[75] The United States Council for Responsible Nutrition has set an Upper Level of 2 grams, based on transient diarrhea. Their publication on vitamin C safety notes that:
“ Very large doses of vitamin C have been taken daily over the course of many years, and only minor undesirable effects have been attributed with any certainty to the vitamin’s use… Clearly, vitamin C has a low order of toxicity."
So, the suggested dose of Airborne is enough to put one into diarrhea range.
Tuckerfan: you got it backward.
Cold-fx is just ginseng.
http://ict.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/3/247
" Ginseng has been studied in some depth as an antifatigue agent, but studies of immune mechanisms have not proceeded so far. Preclinical evidence shows some immune-stimulating activity. There have been several clinical trials in a variety of different diseases."
Ginseng is mostly snake-oil, :dubious: Ginseng has side effects: (Wiki) "One of ginseng’s most common side-effects is the inability to sleep.[1] Other side-effects include nausea, diarrhea, euphoria, headaches, epistaxis, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, mastalgia, and vaginal bleeding.[2]
Ginseng causes problems with other drugs:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2710.2002.00444.x
“Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), particularly aspirin, have the potential to interact with herbal supplements that are known to possess antiplatelet activity (ginkgo, garlic, ginger, bilberry, dong quai, feverfew, ginseng, turmeric, meadowsweet and willow), with those containing coumarin (chamomile, motherworth, horse chestnut, fenugreek and red clover) and with tamarind, enhancing the risk of bleeding. Acetaminophen may also interact with ginkgo and possibly with at least some of the above herbs to increase the risk of bleeding. …The analgesic effect of opioids may also be inhibited by ginseng”
Ginseng has few proven medical uses:
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/136/1/42
“profile of commonly used herbs is needed. This article provides a clinically oriented overview of the efficacy and safety of ginkgo, St. John’s wort, ginseng, echinacea, saw palmetto, and kava. Wherever possible, assessments are based on systematic reviews of randomized clinical trials. Encouraging data support the efficacy of some of these popular herbal medicinal products, and the potential for doing good seems greater than that for doing harm. The published evidence suggests that ginkgo is of questionable use for memory loss and tinnitus but has some effect on dementia and intermittent claudication. St. John’s wort is efficacious for mild to moderate depression, but serious concerns exist about its interactions with several conventional drugs. Well-conducted clinical trials do not support the efficacy of ginseng to treat any condition. Echinacea may be helpful in the treatment or prevention of upper respiratory tract infections, but trial data are not fully convincing. Saw palmetto has been shown in short-term trials to be efficacious in reducing the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Kava is an efficacious short-term treatment for anxiety. None of these herbal medicines is free of adverse effects. Because the evidence is incomplete, risk–benefit assessments are not completely reliable, and much knowledge is still lacking.”
One study I found does show a minor help with colds:
"Results: Subjects who did not start treatment were excluded from the analysis (23 in the ginseng group and 21 in the placebo group), leaving 130 in the ginseng group and 149 in the placebo group. The mean number of colds per person was lower in the ginseng group than in the placebo group (0.68 [standard deviation (SD) 0.82] v. 0.93 [SD 0.91], difference 0.25%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.04–0.45). The proportion of subjects with 2 or more Jackson-verified colds during the 4-month period (10.0% v. 22.8%, 12.8% difference, 95% CI 4.3–21.3) was significantly lower in the ginseng group than in the placebo group, as were the total symptom score (77.5 [SD 84.6] v. 112.3 [SD 102.5], difference 1.5%, 95% CI 1.2–2.0) and the total number of days cold symptoms were reported (10.8 [SD 9.7] v. 16.5 [SD 13.8] days, difference 1.6%, 95% CI 1.3–2.0) for all colds.
Interpretation: Ingestion of a poly-furanosyl-pyranosyl-saccharide–rich extract of the roots of North American ginseng in a moderate dose over 4 months reduced the mean number of colds per person, the proportion of subjects who experienced 2 or more colds, the severity of symptoms and the number of days cold symptoms were reported."
There’s enough Vitamin A in a polar bear’s liver to KILL a human being. Thems is ferocious beasts, they is.
So, what you’re saying is that global warming’s a good thing, since it’s almost certain to wipe out polar bears and their vicious livers.
Might I suggest a google search on “vitamin c overdose.”