Zinc and The Common Cold

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Recommended: Double blind placebo controlled trials on zinc for cold

The common cold is the leading cause of illness in the United States alone equaling to about 1 billion a year. In the continuing quest to find a cure for the common cold it was discovered in 1984 that zinc could possibly help shorten the duration of colds and reduce symptom severity (4). However some findings proved to be inconclusive when they tried to repeat the results. This paper will explore more recent studies on the effect of zinc on the common cold, and examine what further research should be explored.
This first study explored the treatment of the common cold using zinc nasal gel. The hypothesis of this study was to help determine if zinc injected directly to the site of infection could be more beneficial than oral delivery (2). They had a total of 213 subjects; 108 of those were given the zinc gel, and 105 of them were placebos. The participants needed to have symptoms that lasted at least 24 hours and need to include at least 3 of the following symptoms: cough, headache, hoarseness, muscle ache, nasal drainage, nasal congestion, scratchy throat, sore throat, or sneezing. The participants were also expected to not include any other cold drugs during the duration of this study. Administration was one spay into each nostril at every 4 hours (9 a.m., 1 p.m., 5 p.m., and 9.p.m) for as long as they experience symptoms. Participants were also provided with a diary to help document the severity of the symptoms, they wrote in the diary twice a day (9 a.m., and 9 p.m.) the symptoms were graded 0 (absent) to 3 (severe) (2). The results were shown that the participants that were on the zinc gel had shortened symptoms to 2.3 days and the placebo group symptoms lasted for 9.0 days (2). When further examining this study there was no ...

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...Hirt M, Sion N, Barron E. Zinc nasal gel for the treatment of common cold symptoms: a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. ENT. 2000:778-782.
3. Mossad SB. Effect of zincum gluconicum nasal gel on the duration and symptom severity of the common cold in otherwise healthy adults. Q J Med. 2003(96):35-43.
4. Novick SG, Godfrey JC, Godfrey NJ, Wilder HR. How does zinc modify the common cold? Medical hypotheses. 1996;46:295-302.
5. Prasad A, Fitzgerald J, Bao B, Beck F, Chandsasekar P. Duration of symptoms and plasma cytokine levels in patients with the common cold treated with zinc acetate. Ann Intern Med. 2000;133:245-252.
6. Vakili R, Vahedian M, Khodaei G, Mahmous M. Effects of zinc supplementation in occurrence and duration of common cold in school aged children during cold seasons: a double-blind placebo-controlled trail. Iran J Pediatr. 2009;19(4):376-380.

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