Zinc supplements reduce the average cold by about a day and also make symptoms（症状） less severe, according to the latest findings.
There's no cure for the common cold, but there's no shortage of ways to treat the symptoms. For a number of years there's been a lot of interest in zinc supplements - lozenges or syrup - but the scientific evidence(明显) of their value was inconclusive. Now, a review of the research finds recent studies have tipped the balance.
That's the conclusion of a review combining the results of 15 different studies done over more than a decade. The analysis was published by the Cochrane Collaboration（合作）.
"The bottom line is that if you want to decrease the number of days that you'll have a cold, zinc lozenges or syrup probably work," says Kay Dickersin, U.S. director of the Cochrane Collaboration. "And it works for kids or adults. That's the main message."The Cochrane experts say that a medication that is even just partly effective at reducing the length or severity of a cold can help ease symptoms and reduce the significant economic costs of colds.
According to Dickersin, the studies show zinc supplements also reduce the likelihood of catching a cold.
"For those who didn't have a cold to start with, fewer people got the cold if they were taking zinc," she says. "There was a decrease in school absences, there was a decrease in people taking antibiotics."That last point is important because, not only are antibiotics generally useless against a cold, but their overuse can promote the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.（本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑） |