I read Cecil’s straight dope on Zinc being a cure for colds.
I can say this on the subject…I seem to have a pretty weak immunity to the common cold. I used to catch a couple of colds every year, and they’d last for over a week. Then came the nagging cough which lasted another couple of weeks.
That is gone now. At the first sign of a cold (that is the absolute key to the cure), i.e. burning eyes, worn down feeling, hot feeling breath, slight burn in throat, etc, I pop 200mg of zinc (with food…gotta be with food). then 4 hours later, another 200mg.
Cold gone. I have not had a cold in about 8 years, except for one…
My wife called me a hypochondriac…she said there was no way I could tell that I was catching a cold. So I showed her…I didn’t take the zinc when I developed the early symptoms. I caught a cold and it was a doozy. I kept her awake every night for a week with the sneezing, coughing, etc. She doesn’t talk about it anymore.
Bottom line…I really do not care about what the ‘research’ states. Actually I don’t think that the researchers are giving the zinc doses early enough to kill the cold…you REALLY got to know your body, and know when something is trying to sneak in. In my case, zinc is truly the miracle drug. Colds are a thing of the past for me.