The medication "airborne"

Can you believe it? My mother has been trying to get me to take this "multi-vitamin" medication that prevents colds and the flu. I just researched this drug today and found out that the company has been sued. I can't believe people would make random meds up and sell them. And how does a school teacher even invent medications? You don't take anatomy and physiology in teacher's college.

• Use Zicam. Zinc actually does work. No real evidence for anything else.

• Such a scam. Don't trust someone with a medical degree, trust me a third grade teacher. They have made millions on shit. Snake oil of our age.

• r1, complaints against Zicam go back to 2006.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zicam

• Does anything really work (besides of course chicken soup, or anything with garlic and ginger?)

• and yet, it's still being sold and still being touted as some kind of 'wonder' preventative. It's total and complete bullshit. Glad the company is being sued.

• I remember when Airborne was being sued.

• Forsythia anyone?

• To prevent flu: flu shot To prevent colds: pneumonia shot I haven't had a cold for 6 years, the exact time I've had the shot. Every five years I was getting pneumonia every year for 3 years. My doctor said, as soon as I was well, get the shot. I worship that shot & neosporin.

• R2--Those relate to the nasal spray which is no longer manufactured.

• Zicam can make you deaf, allegedly. I'll lose some hearing, then, gladly because that shit WORKS. Airborne is bullshit, though.

• My doctor told me to use Umcka (a t natural food stores)....it works wonders.

• It might not work for the frau that launched the lawsuit, but I swear by it. And yes, I know the definition of "placebo"; however, this isn't it. The combination of ingredients works for me. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

• Zicam kills your sense of smell.

• Zicam has zinc in it, which is not good in large doses. Avoid that shit. And Airborne is useless, you'd be much better off to just take lots of vitamin C. Another vote for the weirdly-named Umcka Cold Care, which actually works. It's usually found in the natural foods section of grocery stores.

• Good one, R7!

  PhilK

• How about bioflavanoids?

• R12 + 1 I know it was made in a garage and a total crap shoot, but I swear it works. Basically its just a mix of common vitamins that give your immune a little boost. The thing is, it only works at the very first sigh of a cold. If you wait until you are really sick it wont do any good. It dose not prevent you from getting the cold, but what it seems to do for me is make it a lot less intense if you do. Im POS and have not been sick all year while all my NEG friends are sick as a dog right now. Including my other half. Sometimes crap shoots work. And I agree, probably some jealous Frau that sued them. Who dose that for a cold medicine.

• [quote] Who dose that for a cold medicine. Intentional oh dear???

• I am going to sue Imodium, I shit my pants.

• Please, Braggs' apple cider vinegar shots at the first sign of illness is all you need. Add in some zinc, vitamin C, sleep and lots of water -- you're golden.

• Zicam works wonders for me. Every time I feel some upper respiratory thing brewing, I spray that shit in my mouth several times a day and keeps whatever I have from coming to the fore. And no I'm not a shill for them. Maybe there's some sort of placebo effect involved, but it works for me. I've heard that airborne is a totally useless.

• [quote]It might not work for the frau that launched the lawsuit, but I swear by it. And yes, I know the definition of "placebo"; however, this isn't it. Actually, it is. "But it works for me!" is the very definition of the word "placebo."

• Zicam does not make you deaf. Do you really imagine the product would still exist if it made people deaf? Nor does it destroy your sense of smell. That was an issue with a version of Zicam that was sprayed into the nose. They stopped making it. What Zicam does is work. It's not a placebo effect. There is growing evidence that zinc can help shorten the duration and mitigate the symptoms of a cold. Works for me. From the NIH: Researchers have hypothesized that zinc could reduce the severity and duration of cold symptoms by directly inhibiting rhinovirus binding and replication in the nasal mucosa and suppressing inflammation [65,66]. Although studies examining the effect of zinc treatment on cold symptoms have had somewhat conflicting results, overall zinc appears to be beneficial under certain circumstances. Several studies are described below in which zinc is administered as a lozenge or zinc-containing syrup that temporarily "sticks" in the mouth and throat. This allows zinc to make contact with the rhinovirus in those areas. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, 50 subjects (within 24 hours of developing the common cold) took a zinc acetate lozenge (13.3 mg zinc) or placebo every 2–3 wakeful hours. Compared with placebo, the zinc lozenges significantly reduced the duration of cold symptoms (cough, nasal discharge, and muscle aches) [67]. In another clinical trial involving 273 participants with experimentally induced colds, zinc gluconate lozenges (providing 13.3 mg zinc) significantly reduced the duration of illness compared with placebo but had no effect on symptom severity [68]. However, treatment with zinc acetate lozenges (providing 5 or 11.5 mg zinc) had no effect on either cold duration or severity. Neither zinc gluconate nor zinc acetate lozenges affected the duration or severity of cold symptoms in 281 subjects with natural (not experimentally induced) colds in another trial [68]. In 77 participants with natural colds, a combination of zinc gluconate nasal spray and zinc orotate lozenges (37 mg zinc every 2–3 wakeful hours) was also found to have no effect on the number of asymptomatic patients after 7 days of treatment [69]. In September of 2007, Caruso and colleagues published a structured review of the effects of zinc lozenges, nasal sprays, and nasal gels on the common cold [66]. Of the 14 randomized, placebo-controlled studies included, 7 (5 using zinc lozenges, 2 using a nasal gel) showed that the zinc treatment had a beneficial effect and 7 (5 using zinc lozenges, 1 using a nasal spray, and 1 using lozenges and a nasal spray) showed no effect. More recently, a Cochrane review concluded that "zinc (lozenges or syrup) is beneficial in reducing the duration and severity of the common cold in healthy people, when taken within 24 hours of onset of symptoms" [70]. The author of another review completed in 2004 also concluded that zinc can reduce the duration and severity of cold symptoms [65]. However, more research is needed to determine the optimal dosage, zinc formulation and duration of treatment before a general recommendation for zinc in the treatment of the common cold can be made [70]. As previously noted, the safety of intranasal zinc has been called into question because of numerous reports of anosmia (loss of smell), in some cases long-lasting or permanent, from the use of zinc-containing nasal gels or sprays [14-16].

  http%3A//ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/

• Just make yourself a whiskey toddy.

• Why do you insist on calling it medication when it clearly isn't? It's a supplement boost. I think you're expecting a bit too much from it.