Natural, Effective Remedies for Colds and Flu

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Alternatively, you can add three drops of either eucalyptus or rosemary essential oil to the just boiled water. If you use peppermint, add only one to two drops. Don’t use essential oils of thyme and oregano for steam inhalation — they’re too irritating. Close your eyes when inhaling essential oils. Caution: Aromatic vapors may aggravate asthma. Also, don’t take these concentrated plant essences by mouth, and keep the bottles out of children’s reach.

A warm bath can relax aching muscles and combat chills. You can either strain the herbs from your steam inhalation pot into a bath, or add five to eight drops of plant essential oils (only three drops for peppermint) to the tub. For muscle aches, try juniper, marjoram and ginger. Disperse the oils well before climbing in. For children 5 to 12 years old, add only one to two drops of essential oil diluted in vegetable oil. Green advises against the use of essential oils for small children or pregnant women.

Vitamins and Minerals

What about supplements? For years, the word on the street was that increasing vitamin C intake would protect you from colds. Vitamin C does indeed promote a healthy immune system, as do vitamin A, carotenes, zinc and selenium. The research on supplementing with these vitamins, however, hasn’t always yielded glowing results. 

A 2004 review of vitamin C research concluded that the cumulative scientific data doesn’t justify mega-dosing vitamin C to prevent or treat the common cold. Even hefty doses (4 grams) at the onset of a cold didn’t seem to alter the course appreciably. A subgroup of people though — those undergoing brief periods of intense physical exertion or exposure to cold — did seem to catch fewer colds while taking vitamin C. Further, some vitamin C users do report a reduced duration and severity of cold symptoms, indicating that it may play some role in respiratory defense mechanisms. Typical daily doses are 200 to 500 milligrams a day. Eating vitamin C-rich foods, such as peppers, guava, citrus fruits, strawberries and leafy greens, is always a great idea.

Now for zinc. In the winter, you can scarcely walk the aisles of your local grocery or drug store without bumping into the bags of zinc lozenges. But the research on zinc supplements is hard to sort.

There have been about a dozen studies on zinc lozenges and nasal gels, with mixed results. Lozenges are supposed to be sucked every two to three hours for the first couple days of a cold. The typical dosage for zinc gluconate lozenges is 9 to 24 milligrams of elemental zinc taken every two hours while awake and symptomatic. Side effects with the lozenges include nausea and weird taste. And there have been reports of people permanently losing their sense of smell after using the nasal gels — a good reason to choose lozenges instead.

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