I’m just recovering from a cold at the moment, and it occurred to me to ask a question I’ve wondered about for a few years.
In the past, I used to continually dose myself on various cold medications (such as Dimetapp), until the cold ran its course. However, as far as I understand, there are no medications available that actually help your body fight off the cold, all they really do is suppress some of the nasty symptoms, making life a little more livable. But then I thought, the symptoms are actually by products of my own body’s defense mechanisms against the cold; if the drug suppresses the symptoms, is it also suppressing my body’s ability to fight off the disease? I’ve avoided cold/flu medications for a number of years because of that suspicion.
Anyway, to sum it up, my question is this, is there any evidence that taking (symptom suppressing) cold/flu medications actually prolong the life of the disease, as a result of their inhibiting the body’s natural defenses against the virus?
Some doctors will tell you that if you let a cold run its course by itself, it will be gone in seven days, but if you take cold medication it will last a whole week!
Not really. Most of the time you’re not suppressing your body’s actual defense, but just the nasty side effect. Even if you are suppressing the defense somewhat, you’re probably talking about a miserable 6 days instead of a livable 7 days.
I should point out that there are now medications available for the flu that can tremendously shorten the duration of the disease if you can get them within 24 hours or so of the onset of symptoms. (The best sign is that you hurt all over.) We’re still pretty helpless on the cold, though.
Remember a couple of years ago the big thing was zinc lozenges? A lot of people, including experts (sorry, I have no cite for that, just remember a lot of news reports and articles), claimed that if you started taking zinc lozenges at the first signs of a cold, that it would greatly reduce the length of the illness. Something to do with the zinc blocking the reproduction or life of the virus in the nasal passages and pharynx, and other moist gooey places. Has anyone here used that stuff successfully?
zinc, vitamin C, echnacia, etc have all been “fads” with several studies done that prove them to work and several studies done that prove them to not work. sleep, plenty of liquids, etc i think are the only remedies that have lasted.
The initial studies of sublingual zinc were favorable; however, later studies did not reproduce the efficacy. Vitamin C has never been touted to cure a cold, even by Linus Pauling. Pauling maintained that if you took a daily megadose you could prevent catching colds. Once you have a cold, megadoses of C can ameliorate the symptomatology. As an experiment of one, I can vouch for the latter. Echinacea may actually have promise, according to many studies. I’ve tried all three. Only C has helped my symptoms. None cures a cold. Although the establishment first ridiculed Pauling’s claims as to C helping the symptoms and shortening the duration, recent studies have validated Pauling’s conclusions.
As to the OP’s question, these chemicals do not have anti-inflammatory actions and do not hinder the immune system, unlike such drugs as Contac [supra] tm [/supra] and other antihistamines. Some say that C acts as an antihistamine. It does prevent the symptoms that histamines produce, but IMHO, it is not due to a suppression of the body’s immune system. This is evidenced by studies showing that C shortens the duration of a cold.