The Human Effect Matrix looks at human studies to tell you what supplements affect Symptoms of the Common Cold.
Full details on all Symptoms of the Common Cold supplements are available to Examine Plus members.
| Grade | Level of Evidence [show legend] |
|---|---|
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Robust research conducted with repeated double-blind clinical trials |
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Multiple studies where at least two are double-blind and placebo controlled |
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Single double-blind study or multiple cohort studies |
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Uncontrolled or observational studies only |
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Level of Evidence
?
The amount of high quality evidence. The more
evidence, the more we can trust the results.
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Supplement |
Magnitude of effect
?
The direction and size of the supplement's impact on
each outcome. Some supplements can have an increasing effect, others have a decreasing effect, and others have no effect.
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Consistency of research results
?
Scientific research does not always agree. HIGH or
VERY HIGH means that most of the scientific research agrees.
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Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Minor
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- See all 11 studies |
Research is quite mixed and inconsistent, but a small reduction in cold symptoms is likely for some people. The effective dose of echinacea and its active chemicals isn't clear, and more research is needed. It's also not entirely clear which symptoms are reduced, as only one study evaluated specific symptoms, and found a reduction in nasal and sinus symptoms but not cough.
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Minor
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Very High See all 11 studies |
Zinc, particularly >75 mg daily of zinc acetate (more research is needed to confirm the best form and dose) reduces the duration of common colds, and so the time that symptoms are present. It likely has a small effect on the severity of throat and nasal symptoms at any given time, but is less likely to help with headache or fatigue.
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Notable
|
- See study |
All symptoms appear to be reduced with treatment of the standard dose of EPs7630. With symptom reduction after five days and the amount of persons with full resolution of symptoms being more than doubled relative to placebo.
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