Autumn is almost upon us, and with it, virus season. Over the next few months, we’ll see a steady rise in cases of colds, flu, COVID, and bronchitis. Fortunately, these common viral conditions rarely cause death or serious harm. Unfortunately, none of them have a cure, and treatment consists mainly of waiting for things to run their course and be fought off by our own immune systems.
While a common cold is not a life threatening event, it can certainly be a miserable experience, and patients frequently ask me what they can take to help. Therefore I did some research on this topic and am creating this post as a useful reference.
To give you a straightforward punchline, here are three evidence-backed treatments for common winter viral infections such as cold and flu:
Use Zinc lozenges such as Zicam or Cold-Eez every few hours starting at the very first sign of illness. Certain formulations of zinc help to slow viral replication, thus giving your immune system a “helping hand,” and a few studies have shown that using zinc lozenges early in the course of viral infection can significantly shorten the duration. Make sure to slowly let the lozenge dissolve in your mouth, rather than chewing or swallowing it whole. This lets the zinc slowly coat the back of your throat, which makes it more effective. The earlier you start, the more effective this is likely to be.
Rinse your nose and sinuses with saline every few hours, also starting at the first sign of illness. You can use either a netti-pot in which you dissolve salt into water that has been boiled and then allowed to cool to lukewarm, or else purchase an over the counter nasal saline spray from the pharmacy. Either way has been shown to help reduce the duration of illness. This is for two main reasons: first off, you are literally washing viral particles out of your nose and sinus. And secondly, the presence of salt helps to boost the immune function of certain cells that line your sinuses and nasal cavity.
Take a few teaspoons of honey per day. This can be taken whole, or else dissolved into something like hot tea. While it will not shorten the duration of a cold, honey has been shown to be effective at improving cough and making people sleep better.
I could delve deeper into the science behind all of this, but that would probably make for a boring post. So I’m instead going to link to a youtube video that I think does a nice job of covering this topic in more depth, in case you are nerd like me who likes to understand the science of why things work as they do:
