Talk:Common cold

Cold-fX

Shouldn't there be some mention of Cold-fX? 216.239.234.196 (talk) 16:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes maybe under alternative treatments that have no evidence for them.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Weight

There is an issue with how much is write about alternative treatments. None of which have good support. This section should be reduced. Reviews rather than primary research should be referenced. Will work on this.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Have fixed it. Still lots of work needed.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

2nd generation antihistamines.

The article reference does not support the claim that 2nd generation antihistamine drugs are not useful for a cold symptoms. The drugs merely do not cross the blood brain barrier and a cold virus does not attack the brain anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.155.225.190 (talk) 05:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what you are getting at.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Its pretty clear I think. 2nd generation antihistamines do have some utility in treating cold symptoms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.137.80.244 (talk) 06:18, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The reference says "Antihistamines won’t help someone with a cold.". Which means the article should have not narrowed it to 2nd generation drugs. Here is a better reference.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17323712

"Antihistamines and combination antihistamine/decongestant therapies can modestly improve symptoms in adults; however, the benefits must be weighed against potential side effects. Newer nonsedating antihistamines are ineffective against cough." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.137.80.244 (talk) 06:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You would agree with the above article. These drugs have limited effectiveness and are not effective for the cough. May help with nasal congestion.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Under "Symptoms"...

What is this bit about?

<In fact, recent sources a Ms Allegra Nespoli as having contracted the virus for up to 6 months on her move to an unspecified burough of London (Old London Town). Hospital records have never been officially recovered but sources close to the government alluded to the incident in several revealing interviews with early morning interviewer Tim Westwood.>

76.213.243.124 (talk) 03:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Highly contagious

I disagree with the use of the word 'highly contagious' as research has shown it to be not very contagious.

According to the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University, on webpage:

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/biosi/subsites/cold/commoncold.html

There is a paragraph that says:

Common cold viruses are not very contagious

Despite the fact that very few of us escape from at least a couple of common cold infections each year, common cold viruses are not very contagious. Under laboratory conditions when healthy volunteers are kept with others who are suffering from common cold infections it has proven remarkably difficult to spread infection from one person to another.

Source: Andrewes C. The Common Cold. New York: Norton, 1965:187.

Is there any research to suggest it is 'highly contagious'?

Chikong (talk) 22:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Means of Infection

I have a challenge for myself and anyone who considers themselves informed about the "common cold." Find research (a primary source) that demonstrates that hand washing reduces infection. There certainly isn't any on this page. What we have is, instead, a reference to a news article about research on influenza, wherein someone parrots the conventional "wisdom" that colds are transmitted by touch.

It makes no sense that colds are transmitted by touch for this simple reason: People wash their hands about the same amount year round. But colds are highly seasonal. This is the best "research" on this question I have found so far.

Michael Layton 2009-04-03 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.240.77 (talk) 04:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Alternative Treatments

A new section was created on Alternative Treatments. I replaced the text with new text. My change was reverted, and I received the following comment on my Talk page:

Dear user, Your recent edit in common cold was reverted, since there was no solid discussion on "Alternative treatment for common cold" on the talk page of this article as you mentioned there is, in your "edit summary". In your edit, you deleted a large section and just claimed that such treatment does not exist. Well, although I may agree with you, but I should mention that we can not just delete a section and add out self idea. The section that you deleted also had references. What you can do, is you add your statement with its citation to the previouse section but please do not delete statements from the articles without a solid discussion. I appreciate your attention Parvazbato59 (talk) 16:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• I noticed that you discussed it in another article here. This is the problem. One can not address an issue on another article and simply delete a section by addressing it there. But I am sure you were unaware of it. What you can do, is to do the same discussion in the talk page of common cold by opeining a new section and naming it "Alternative treatment for common cold". Then you can modify the text under that section, but still, I insist you can not delete the statements with references, eventhough they are against what we think". I know that alternative treatments maynot be scientific, but as you know, some of the medicines that we use today, come from the common "herbs". Sicnece is not perfect. Thanks Parvazbato59 (talk) 16:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed I should have replicated the discussion from the other page here. My reason was to avoid having two different ongoing debates. I'm happy to provide my rationale here.

That said, I disagree with Parvazbato's change. First, I didn't delete the newly added section, I corrected it. Second, the information was medically suspect. Third, "science is not perfect" is not a useful argument. And fourth, the "references" that Parvazabato mentions are not working links, and hence the sources cannot be checked for reputability, factual correctness, or even verification that the text here accurately represents what is written in the cited source. For all of these reasons, I do not agree with Parvazbato's reversion.

In addition, my statement which was deleted by Parvazbato, clearly said that CAM treatments for the common cold are not supported by solid scientific evidence, and included a reputable source backing up that claim. So I insist that my statement be added back to the article. Leaving the remainder (added by Romarin) is, in my opinion, flat out wrong as it is not scientifically valid information. To avoid an edit war, I will leave it for now, with caveats. However, if sources which are not easily checked are not provided to backup these claims, I favor deleting the list of CAM treatments as anecdotal and improper.

As of right now, I take exception with and will change the following wording:

Few alternative treatments have been the subject of rigorous scientific research, and so for many of these, evidence is primarily historical and/or anecdotal.

This is not a correct statement. There have been plenty of tests of alternative treatments, and the prevailing scientific consensus is that none of them are effective against the common cold. I reference the American Lung Association as one reputable source of this fact (see article citation). In addition, in science and medicine, when evidence for something is merely anecdotal (or "historical," whatever that is supposed to mean), that means that it lacks evidence, and is not supported by scientific study.

My new version is now saved. --Transity (talk) 17:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

As the original author of the alternative treatments paragraph, I would like to point out one thing. The text:

Many alternative treatments are used by people throughout the world. These can include herbs such as echinacea and calendula, other plants such as ginger and garlic, or vitamin supplements such as vitamin C.

says absolutely nothing with regards to the effectiveness of these treatments, only that such treatments are used throughout the world, which is a unarguable fact. The sentence that was then added:

However, none of these claims are supported by scientific evidence.

is logically unsound, since no claims were ever made in the previous sentence. I did not write anything that could be construed as "these alternatives work fabulously!" or anything of the sort. I only wrote that they are used. Is that the claim that is being called false? Does it take a clinical study to decide whether or not people use a particular treatment?

Furthermore, the previous subsections describing other forms of treatment aren't being subjected to the same scrutiny. Why pick on alternative treatments? There is conflicting evidence surrounding all forms of treatments, "alternative" or otherwise. The previous section, for example, states that:

Various cold medicines exist which claim to help relieve symptoms. They include mucolytics, expectorants, antitussives, and anticongestants.

There is no information to back this up, nothing about whether these claims are supported or not.

I am thus going to remove the sentence that was added in. There is information on the actual alternative treatments page about how these treatments haven't been "scientifically proven", and in keeping with the continuity of the rest of this article, it seems that that is a better place for such arguments than here. romarin [talk ] 18:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You are correct on one point: your statement made no claims of effectiveness. However, your decision to then delete my statement is unacceptable. Accordingly, I have added it back, with the wording around "claims" now corrected to say:

However, the ability of these alternative remedies to treat the common cold is not supported by scientific evidence.

Now the statement takes your statement that many alternative treatments are used around the world, and states that, despite this usage, CAM as a treatment for the common cold is not supported by scientific evidence.

If you have a problem with other sections in this post not being properly cited, then by all means, go ask for references in those sections. That isn't a valid argument for not properly editing this section.

All that said, since you are the person who added the section in question, I would ask that you provide sources that can be easily checked. None of your sources have links, which makes them difficult to vet. --Transity (talk) 18:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay saying that the treatment is commonly used does in a way imply effectiveness which is why this statement must be followed with one stating that CAMs they are ineffective. Made some changes to reflect this.

Bringing up the fact that other statement do not have references to them means nothing with respect to this statement. I put a fact tag on the other stuff a while back. And will delete the bit on decongestents / mucolytics if evidence is not found. P.S. will look myself when I have time.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Cardiff University's page (referenced) is nothing but weasel words about possible evidence that is never revealed. For example:

There is some scientific evidence which indicates that Echinacea does affect our immune system by stimulating the activity of white blood cells.

Some studies have found this, others have not. More importantly, none have found that Echinacea does anything for the common cold. And that, I think, is the proper yardstick here. The same thing with Zinc:

It has also been proposed that zinc medications may coat the common cold viruses such as the rhinovirus and prevent them from attaching to the nasal cells .

That's a nice proposal and all, but even this page makes it obvious that it isn't even remotely proven. Also:

Recent research indicates that early treatment of common cold with zinc lozenges may shorten the duration of common cold symptoms by several days. However, there are several clinical trials that have reported that zinc lozenges are no more effective than placebo medicines.

So, in other words, the positive results here aren't able to be reliably replicated. Hence, it isn't supported by scientific evidence. I'm reverting this edit, and also adding references to a study associated with the NCCAM (who are usually biased toward alt med) which found no benefits to echinacea. --Transity (talk | contribs) 01:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

And what scientific evidence do the American Lung Association have for making their statement? I would like to read the research paper. 87.114.20.179 (talk) 08:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you should re-read what I posted, both here and in the article.

Here, I wrote how the Cardiff page doesn't actually claim that there is evidence for any of these things, and I showed a few examples to illustrate that point. Really, all they are saying is "hey, these things could work, so keep an open mind." That hardly constitutes a solid reference for anything. Then they reference a bunch of studies (without links to check them). But if the Cardiff page itself isn't claiming that there is proof that these things work, then we can assume that their studies also don't make that case (or else Cardiff would as well). That's why I felt the Cardiff reference wasn't useful.

In the article itself, I referenced a study done through the NCCAM and published in the NEJM on the effectiveness of echinacea for treating the common cold. The results of that study showed that echinacea didn't have any effect on the rate of infection, or the duration or severity of symptoms of the common cold, which is exactly what I stated in the article. I provided a link to the NEJM and the NCCAM pages that detail this study, and the results. So if you'd truly like to read a study showing that echinacea is useless for the common cold, please feel free to do so (just follow the links on the references in the article).

Finally, it isn't possible to cite a study to backup the claim that none of these remedies have been shown to be effective for treating the common cold. Should this statement only be allowed if it is accompanied by a reference to every single study ever conducted on these remedies? No. The burden of proof is on the person claiming that they are effective - that's how science works, and that's the standard that other non-alternative treatments are held to. I could claim that rubbing a poodle all over myself cures the cold, and add that to this page, along with a reference to someone saying that "it has been hypothesized that poodle massage helps sinus drainage, and thereby reduces the symptoms of the common cold," with no studies that actually backup that hypothesis. Who has the burden of proof there? Me, or the person who alters that text to say that there is no evidence backing up that claim? --Transity (talk | contribs) 14:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Agree with transity. We do not need more on this page about alternative treatments on this page. There is an entire page dedicated to discussing this issue.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The research is full of flaws. 87.114.20.179 (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The research is full of flaws? What research? What flaws? If you mean that the cited study on echinacea is flawed, please provide details of the flaws you've found in the study. I provided a link - go ahead and read it, and let us know what flaws you've found. Inadequate control groups? Improper blinding? Errors in the statistical analysis? I'm not aware of any of these, but if you've found flaws, then I'd certainly like to know about them.

However, right now, based on your brief comment, there's nothing anyone can do but ask for more details, and ignore you until you can provide them. Simply saying that "the research" is "full of flaws" isn't useful. --Transity (talk | contribs) 21:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Can you believe this: they spent millions on research and experiments on Echinacea angustifolia - a species with less alkamides. I am telling you, the research you are quoting is flawed. 87.114.160.43 (talk) 11:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Treatment

For those of you who have access to Uptodate here is a great ref: http://www.uptodate.com/online/content/topic.do?topicKey=pc_id/5093&selectedTitle=3~116&source=search_result#19 --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)