Steve Zodiac

I've been advised that the best cure for a cold is to take Echidna in powder form, it's apparently an old Australian tradition with results (not sure which kind) guaranteed.

Strikes me as a bit unethical as, if they're not endangered, they soon would be - like the Tasmanian Tiger before them (used as a cure for ricketts, I believe). Bit like using powdered rhino horn to enhance your you know what, I suppose.

Anyway I was wondering if anybody had tried it and could they comment on the results?

Don't have a cold at the moment, just planning ahead!

Nicky & Dave

LOL! It's not spelt like that, you wally. *Giggle* It's echinaeda or something like that - it's a herbal remedy! *Giggle-giggle*

Personally, I prefer hot whiskey, honey and lemon - I mean, if you're going be ill, might as well involve alcohol in some form or another!

Nicky

Pollyana

Conjures up all sorts of images of how it would be possible to reduce a hedgehog to powder

wmoore

I like your thinking

DIMO8

I thought it was more used as a ' pick me up ' rather than a cold remedy.

Good old paracetamol and plenty of fluids...you dont need these expensive cold remedies

Bella Donna

I think you mean echinacea purpurea. Sounds a bit like it! I've got echinacae growing in my garden right now - also known as rudbeckia, I believe. Not sure on that one. If not the same, it's closely related.

See http://www.questhealthlibrary.com/herbs/echinacea for more details.

HTH.

Steve Zodiac

You people have been in Australia too long.

WAKE UP! I WAS ONLY JOKING!!!!!!!

Bella Donna

Well I'm not even there yet!

But echinacea is a very good cold remedy all the same...maybe you should try it next time you get the snuffles?

NickyC

Wouldn't waste your money!

Study finds echinacea useless against colds

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...7/s1424369.htm

Bella Donna

I'm afraid I go by experience rather than studies, often conducted by people with an axe to grind, especially where alternative remedies are concerned.

hevs

Well i laughed straight away

NickyC

Funnily enough that research was undertaken by US National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).

And the doctor in charge of the study reckoned that most of the previous tests that helped build echinacea's reputation "were of small, inadequately controlled studies sponsored by industry".

Bella Donna

That's a very recent study - haven't seen that one before. It's interesting to see that the study observed the effects of Echinacea Angustifolia - not Echinacea Purpurea. To a herbalist, there is a very big difference. The active ingredients are sometimes totally different between species and chemotypes.

As an aromatherapist I use a lot of Thyme - but there is a world of therapeutic difference between the carvacrol chemotype and the linalool chemotype. Still the same botanical species though - thymus vulgaris.

Echinacea has been used therapeutically for centuries and I still prefer to trust experience than a *study* such as this - especially as 399 subjects is really quite small when taken in perspective.

Thanks for the details though. Useful to know about.

Steve Zodiac

Wish I could think of some other herbal remedies that sounded like Antipodean animals!