Kid Have A Cold? Save Your Money. Stay Away From The Pharmacy.

[HuckleB]

What’s with the new cough and cold products?
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=8348

"...

Cough and cold products have been sold for decades, long before rigorous proof of efficacy was required for regulatory approval. Consequently, clinical studies that support these drugs are (in general) of poor quality. When we look for studies of treatments specifically in children, the data are even more limited. Research results are complicated by different age groups, irregular dosing, lack of placebo control, and very small patient numbers.1 It turns out that the current recommended dosage for children, typically determined during clinical trials, is based mainly on expert opinion. When these products were originally approved, it was assumed that children were just “small adults” and that research in adults could be applied to children. Dosages were estimated based on ages — not weight, which would be more relevant.

...


The data may be summed up by their absence — there’s very little evidence to demonstrate these products are effective in children, and there’s some evidence to suggest that they are probably ineffective. Yet cough and cold products have a long history of use in children, with very rare reports of toxicity, usually due to inappropriate (excessive) dosing.3 In general, these drugs have a wide “therapeutic window,” meaning that large overdoses are required before serious side effects are expected.

But when you’re treating a mild, self-limiting condition with ineffective or unproven products that have a remote (but possible) risk of harm, the appropriate question should be “Why medicate?” And that’s the questions regulators around the world have been asking.

...

Homeopathic and other “natural” remedies have emerged as the only marketed alternative — not because they are effective, but because of regulatory double standards and loopholes allow the sale of these products without demonstrated efficacy (or even any medicinal ingredients at all). With the medicinal products pulled off the shelf, they’re the only game in town now. And while homeopathy is admittedly safer than restricted products, given there’s no medicinal ingredients, and they’re not effective, all you can expect are placebo effects. Are parents aware the substitute remedies are just sugar and water?

..."


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It's hard to summarize the article well, even with the quotes above, but a full read is worthwhile, IMO.

:hi:

[tridim]

1. A netti pot, honey and lemon is all anyone needs to fight the common cold.

Took me a long time to learn that, but I'm glad I did.

[tavalon]

4. Timely reminder!

People have been dropping like flies in my house and while I've instituted some rather draconian policies around handwashing and covering sneezes with elbow, I totally forgot about the neti pot.

PS if you use one, don't use iodized salt with it. There is a small possibility that too much of it will get absorbed into the sinuses.

[4_TN_TITANS]

6. I prefer the squeeze bottle to the netti pot, but you so right....

Nasal rinse is the best-kept health secret I've found. I haven't had a serious illness or cold since the wife and I started using it a couple of years ago. Makes you wonder what was swimming in that snot without rinsing daily. I wish I could get my daughters to self-waterboard, they would feel much better!

[tridim]

10. It basically fixes an evolutionary flaw in the human sinus cavity.

If our bodies came with an instruction manual, nasal irrigation would certainly be in chapter one.

[knitter4democracy]

9. For me, it's tons of garlic.

I eat a dinner laced massively with garlic, drink tea with honey and lemon, and do the nasal flush thing at night, and that works better for a cold than anything else I've tried.

Same with a cough: Ricola cough drops work better than any prescription I've ever tried.

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[HuckleB]

3. Normally, I welcome the unrec crowd, but it's a bit puzzling this time.

Why would the unreccers want people to waste their money?

:shrug:

[laconicsax]

8. Vested interests?

[HuckleB]

20. That's certainly a possibility. -eom-

[littlewolf]

5. A doctor told me once

that if you get medicine when you have a cold ... you will feel better (and poorer) in 7 days ....

if you dont ... it will take a week ...
:D

[Celebration]

7. Try buying Vick's vapo rub

http://children.webmd.com/news/20101108/vapor-rub-helps-kids-cold-symptoms-sleep

It has a study to back it up.

[salvorhardin]

11. That Vick's study was very poorly designed and pretty much worthless

There was an attempt to blind the parents by having them dab VapoRub under their noses so they wouldn't know whether their kid was getting the VapoRub or just plain petroleum jelly, yet 98% of the parents correctly guessed which product they were applying to their kids. They picked up on signals such as the skin rash the VapoRub gave half of the kids in the study.

Also, there was no attempt to prevent the kids from knowing exactly what they were getting.

So effectively, this study is totally unblinded.

Finally, it should be noted that the study's lead researcher has done quite a bit of work for Proctor & Gamble, and various trade associations, and the study was funded by Procter & Gamble, as well as the NIH. That doesn't necessarily invalidate the results of the study though.

Dr Paul has been a paid consultant for the Consumer Products Healthcare Association, McNeil Consumer Health Inc, the Procter and Gamble Company, Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare International Ltd, and Novartis Consumer Health Inc; the other authors have indicated they have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

This study was supported by an unrestricted research grant from Procter and Gamble to Penn State University and by National Institutes of Health General Clinical Research Center grant M01RR10732 and GCRC construction grant C06RR016499 awarded to the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.

Here's a link to the study if you'd like to read it: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=1MACbNMYZVmAC1CcP9vQrsReAdnLhQQtNlggXX71kE5XdGEsZv8SLPRqsAqOV&hl=en&authkey=CP38vsUJ

[Celebration]

12. one question

How would YOU suggest that they blind a test for Vicks Vapo Rub? :rofl:

Sounds like they did all they could.

Oh, I know who paid for the test. SOP, just like all the pharma companies do.

[salvorhardin]

15. That's actually a very good question

Unfortunately, I think it's the wrong one to ask. The right question is why did they even attempt blinding for a treatment that is instantly detectable? My guess is because they were more interested in the trappings of a medical study than the study itself.

More importantly, I think, is to ask how would a good study be designed to assess the effectiveness of VapoRub? And how would you define effectiveness?

[Celebration]

18. everyone who doesn't try to blind a study gets criticized

Never mind that it is often impossible. As an example, it is impossible to effectively blind a study on magnets.

Anyway, that is why they attempted blinding it. They weren't positive it wouldn't work until they tried it.

I dunno. VaporRub is pretty cheap. I would say people could try it and see if it helped. It seems harmless. People can decide for themselves if they like the effects or not.

[Confusious]

23. Why would you need to do a blind study on magnets?

Blind studies are so people don't know what's going on.

A magnet doesn't care. A neither do the people. You aren't going to use magnets to cure a disease, unless you're a woo peddler.

Besides that, magnetism is defined by mathematics and physics, not biology.

[HuckleB]

19. Indeed. It's quite possible to design a fair placebo.

It doesn't seem like they tried very hard with this study.

More on the reasons for double blinding:
http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/2005/03/why-double-blind-studies-steven.html

And...

Does it matter what's in a placebo?
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/does_it_matter_whats_in_a_plac.php

-----------------------

Further, I suspect that P & G's study was a response to this study:

Vicks VapoRub may put infants at risk, study finds
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/13/science/sci-vicks13

At this point, I'll keep my money.

[trotsky]

13. Vicks is owned by Procter & Gamble, a multibillion dollar corporation.

They MUST have funded the study in order to sell their evil product!

[Celebration]

14. Sure they did.

It's the American Way, isn't it?

[salvorhardin]

16. Actually, I noted P&G did fund the study

Also, the lead researcher has a long term association with P&G. Sometimes scientists are paid to come up with results favorable to a company's product. Do we know that's the case here? No. But we do know that the study is horribly designed and doesn't really measure anything. Read the discussion section in the study's writeup that I posted. It fails on so many levels. Many of the parents didn't even follow the treatment protocol.

[trotsky]

17. Holy fuck! It's true!

Procter & Gamble is coming for your kids so they can sacrifice them to Satan! I know it's true because they used the symbol for Satan all those years.

[SheilaT]

21. One old wives' tale which is true, at least for me,

is to massively increase liquid intake (water, mainly) if a cold is coming on.

Here's another interesting thing to ponder: there are a limited number of cold viruses. And since colds are caused by viruses, once you've had one, you should be immune to that particular virus the next time it wanders in your direction. So over time, you normally should get fewer and fewer colds. I've certainly found that to be true. I'm now 62, and if I get a cold a year it's a lot. More like one every two or three years these days.

[HuckleB]

22. A kick for... -eom-