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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Echinacea is popular among the Ozarks immigrants with whom I cavort. Steven 
Foster, an herbalist author and friend, has written a book about its 
efficacy for a wide range of health issues. Now here is a scientific study 
that says, at least for colds, echinacea is pure folk lore:

Study Says Echinacea Has No Effect on Colds

By GINA KOLATA
Published: July 28, 2005

Echinacea, the herbal supplement made from purple coneflower and used by 
millions of Americans to prevent or treat colds, neither prevented colds 
nor eased cold symptoms in a large and rigorous study.

The study, being published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, 
involved 437 people who volunteered to have cold viruses dripped into their 
noses. Some swallowed echinacea for a week beforehand, others a placebo. 
Still others took echinacea or a placebo at the time they were infected.

Then the subjects were secluded in hotel rooms for five days while 
scientists examined them for symptoms and took nasal washings to look for 
the virus and for an immune system protein, interleukin-8. Some had 
hypothesized that interleukin-8 was stimulated by echinacea, enabling the 
herb to stop colds.

But the investigators found that those who took echinacea fared no 
differently from those who took a placebo: they were just as likely to 
catch a cold, their symptoms were just as severe, they had just as much 
virus in their nasal secretions, and they made no more interleukin-8.

Some researchers say still further investigation is needed, with stronger 
doses and with echinacea species and preparations different from those used 
in this study. But Dr. Stephen E. Straus, director of the National Center 
for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the government agency that 
sponsored the new research, says he for one is satisfied that echinacea is 
not an effective cold remedy.

"This paper says it will not pre-empt a common cold, and it stands on top 
of prior studies saying it doesn't treat an established cold," he said, 
adding, "We've got to stop attributing any efficacy to echinacea."

While the herb is generally safe, he said, some people are allergic to it, 
and it can lower blood levels of theophylline, a drug used by people who 
have asthma, as well as levels of medications used to treat diabetes.

The study originated at the national center, where researchers were 
questioning what sort of supplements Americans were taking, and why. A 
national survey last year by the National Center for Health Statistics 
found that echinacea was the most popular natural product, used by some 
14,665,000 people, or 40 percent of those who used natural products. The 
American Botanical Council, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of 
herbal supplements, says sales of echinacea products in 2004 were about 
$155 million.

"It's a product with remarkable traction," Dr. Straus said. "It has that 
traction because of the combination of folklore, myth and word of mouth 
which is much more than the science has borne out."

The rest of the article may be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/health/28cold.html?hp&ex=1122609600&en=784f4af866253b8f&ei=5094&partner=homepage