Cold Remedies - What's the evidence?

As we navigate through cold and flu season this year I began thinking about the different remedies we have to try to prevent or alleviate the signs and symptoms of the cold or flu. The most common remedies I found were ginger, green tea, honey, garlic, nasal rinses, or steam.

Treatment Scores™ is a great platform to assess the evidence behind each of these remedies and provide a quick, understandable comparison of the evidence.  We can use the score to help educate ourselves on the evidence of each remedy, but we must use caution that the interpretation, diagnosis, and treatments should be done in consultation with your licensed physician within the patient-physician relationship. (See disclaimers below.)

The first step in my assessment was to complete a quick search of the literature for each of these.  While some of these had no evidence immediately available, there were several that came up with an assortment of different levels of evidence.  Hopefully we can use Treatment Scores™ to combine these different levels and quality of evidence to create a simple, easily understandable, comparable score for each treatment.

While Treatment Scores™ cannot recommend a specific treatment the next time you catch a cold, it can allow you to have a clearer understanding of the science behind each treatment.

Over the next few weeks I'll be taking a look at each of these treatments in the Treatment Scores Calculator™.  By the end of our series we will have a score for each of the treatments, providing us a simple comparison of the evidence behind each treatment. (See the disclaimers below.)

Please use the comments section below for any additional remedies you would like to see evaluated.

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DISCLAIMERS: 
You must consult your own licensed physician, or other licensed medical professional, for diagnosis, treatment, and for the interpretation of all medical statistics including SOM® Treatment Scores. Treatment Scores are for educational purposes only. Treatment Scores may be incomplete, inaccurate, harmful, or even cause death if used for treatment instead of consulting a licensed medical professional. No medical advice is being given. We DO NOT CLAIM to cure, treat, or prevent any illness or condition. Nor do our services provide medical advice or constitute a physician patient relationship. Contact a physician or other medical professional if you suspect that you are ill. Call emergency services (call 911 if available) or go to the nearest emergency room if an emergency is suspected. We are not responsible for any delays in care from using our website, our services, or for any other reason. We are not responsible for any consequential damages of any nature whatsoever. We make no warranties of any kind in connection with our writings or the use of TreatmentScoresBlog.com or TreatmentScores.com. Treatment Scores are about what happened in the past they do not predict the future.

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