Influenza Virus Transmission Is Dependent on Relative Humidity and Temperature

Posted on October 21st, 2007 in Cold and Flu, Immune System by Thomas

Research by the Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, published on PLoS Pathogens, shows that and virus spread easier when the humidity and temperature is relatively low.

The research suggests that the viruses survive longer and spread easier at an ambient temperature of 5° C/42° F, and a low relative humidity,  20 to 40%.

In the United States alone, an average of 41,400 deaths and 1.68 million hospitalizations are attributed to each year.

The cooler temperatures and lower humidity doesn’t  seem to have an effect on the itself.

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Echinacea Protects from Cold

Posted on June 26th, 2007 in Cold and Flu, Food Supplements, Immune System, Vitamin C by Thomas

Echinacea has been a staple supplement to boost a persons and it has been used by Native Americans for centuries.

U.S. Researchers reported 2 years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine (Vol. 353, P. 341) that there is zero preventive effect by using .

A new study published in The Lancet Infection Diseases (2007, No. 7, P. 473) comes to a different result. Echinacea protects and accelerates the healing of colds.

According to the researchers around Craig Coleman, University of Connecticut, the risk to catch a cold is 58% lower when taking Echinacea. When sick, Echinacea shortens the duration of the cold by an average of 1.4 days.

Coleman’s group examined 14 studies on the efficiency on substances in which some 800 different preparations have been tested.

In one of the studies Echincea was combined with . The risk to catch a cold is reduced by 86%.

It is not clear how Echinacea works with the immune system the study says.

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