Healthnotes Newswire (September 14, 2000)—As cold and flu season approaches, good news may await those preparing to brave the bitter taste of liquid echinacea preparations.

According to a double-blind study recently published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, employees of a nursing home who consumed echinacea tea at the onset of a cold or flu reduced the duration of their symptoms by about two days when compared with people consuming a “placebo” tea.¹ The echinacea tea, commercially sold as Echinacea Plus^® (Traditional Medicinals^®, Inc., Sebastopol, California), reportedly combines dried leaves, flowers, and stems of both Echinacea purpurea and Echinacea angustifolia with a dry extract of E. purpurea root. The tea eases some of the unpleasant taste of echinacea by adding small amounts of lemongrass and spearmint leaf for flavoring. The placebo tea, known commercially as Eater’s Digest^®, combines herbs traditionally used for stomachaches and indigestion.

The predominantly female population in the study was instructed to consume five to six cups of tea on the first day of their symptoms and decrease this by one cup each day over the next five days. According to a simple questionnaire completed by each participant, those consuming the echinacea tea not only reported a shorter duration of symptoms but also quicker symptom relief and greater effectiveness in reducing symptoms compared with those taking the tummy tea.

While not as rigorously designed as other studies exploring the use of echinacea for colds and flu, this study continues to support other findings that suggest echinacea or echinacea-combination products may reduce the duration and severity of both conditions.^{2 3 4 5} Put simply, this means keep the echinacea in the medicine cabinet until you feel a cold or flu coming and start taking it until your symptoms resolve. Of course, rest and some chicken soup don’t hurt either.

Consumers should be aware that research has not supported echinacea’s use as a preventive tool against colds and flu.⁶ Also, people with allergies to plants of the Asteraceae family (e.g., ragweed, asters, chrysanthemums) should use echinacea cautiously, as it may cause allergic reactions in these individuals.