- My wife’s winter cold is like a Hollywood serial killer!
- Are you having this common winter cold problem too?
- News about the link between zinc and flu
This happens a lot in horror films.
A crazed killer goes on the rampage…
The victims pile up… one after the other…
That is, until some plucky hero eventually manages to do him in… pushing him from a tall building or bashing him over the head with a heavy object.
As you sit there in your cinema seat, you think, “Finally, it’s all over.”
But no…
Suddenly the killer returns from the dead for another attack.
In some Hollywood slasher films, this surprise comeback happens two or three times, until you’re thinking, “SURELY he must be dead by now?”
And so he might be…
Although he’ll probably be back in the sequel, and the sequel after that.
Anyway, this is pretty much what Lara’s recent winter cold has been like!
My wife first developed symptoms about a month ago.
It was the usual thing – sniffles, sore throat, bit of a chesty cough.
After a week, it seemed to be going away.
Then, suddenly, it came back with a vengeance.
We couldn’t work out if it was the same cold or she’d caught another one!
We did all the usual stuff that we normally do – honey, lemon, garlic, vinegar… lots of fruit and veg… herbal teas… vitamin D supplements… vitamin C supplements… echinacea… salt water gargles… you name it.
And it worked…
For a while at least.
Then last night, she was sneezing and coughing again.
It was back!
What on earth is going on?
This flippin’ thing is like a Hollywood serial killer!
It’s not only Lara experiencing this phenomenon either – we’ve talked to loads of friends and acquaintances who are suffering these seemingly un-shiftable colds this year.
Newspapers have reported the ‘worst cold ever’ spreading across the UK, which many people say they simply cannot shift.
If you’re in this situation too, one thing you might want to try on top of the usual measures is zinc.
Some historical studies have suggested that zinc lozenges reduce the length of a cold by about a day when taken within two days of the first symptoms.
But until now, the evidence has been a bit sketchy and the jury has been out on zinc supplementation for colds.
However, the good news is that fresh research published in BMJ shows that zinc supplements really can cut the amount of time your cold and flu symptoms last.
This was from a pretty large-scale review too, covering 28 studies and including 5,500 test subjects.
The scientists found that zinc supplements (either by nasal spray or capsule) reduced symptoms of coughing and sneezing without the sufferer using any other treatment.
The study’s authors go as far as to say that GPs should prescribe zinc to those patients with cold and flu who are pressuring them for antibiotics.
I’m all in favour of that!
The sooner society weans itself off this destructive antibiotic reliance, the better, for the sake of us all.
And it’s not as if antibiotics even WORK on this kind of illness anyway. Some GPs have simply used them to get difficult patients out of their surgery.
Why is zinc so special?
Zinc plays a key role in many bodily functions, including supporting your immune system, healing wounds and controlling blood pressure.
Any level of zinc deficiency is going to have a serious impact on your health, so keeping levels up is important.
There’s only one downside…
Oral zinc supplements taken in high doses can potentially have a few side effects including indigestion, diarrhoea, headaches and nausea. It can also lead to a copper deficiency which can cause numbness in your arms and legs.
This is why the recommendation is that adults should take no more than 40 mg of zinc per day.
If you have any concerns about this, I’d recommend you talk to your doctor before considering the use of zinc to prevent or reduce the length of colds.
Similarly, if you do happen to be on antibiotics, be aware that oral zinc can interfere with their bacteria-fighting powers.
Or here’s an even better alternative…
The zinc-rich diet
If you don’t want to take it as a balanced supplement, there are plenty of tasty foods that you can eat, including shellfish (particularly oysters), chickpeas, lentils and beans, nuts and seeds, eggs and wholegrains.
You can eat these to your heart’s desire and not worry about undue side effects.
You should also try and include spinach, broccoli or kale with your main meal, as they have plenty of zinc too.
And for a treat or dessert, have some dark chocolate – you might not realise it, but that’s also a source of zinc.
You can also find zinc in chlorella, which contains massive amounts of healthy chlorophyll, along with B vitamins, vitamins A, C, D, and E and minerals like calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium – and, yes, good old zinc.
We’ve got a page up about it here: Chlorella
Anyway, I’m sure Lara will be fine (it’s definitely not Covid, we’ve checked) but it does seem like we face a grisly winter where the lurgy is especially hard to shift…
So let’s arm ourselves with the best nutritional weapons!
