Fighting a cold: eat vegetables!

We've all been there -- that sniffling, sneezing, coughing state that makes you long for an instant cure for the common cold. These guidelines will help you choose the best remedy to minimize your symptoms.

Nobel Prize–winning scientist Linus Pauling, PhD, was convinced that vitamin C could ward off a cold, but science has proven him wrong for the most part. While a few studies suggest that a big dose of vitamin C at the start of a cold may shorten symptoms by about eight percent (less than a day in the three- to seven-day course of an average cold), a definitive analysis of 29 well-designed studies involving more than 11,700 people concluded that vitamin C supplements have no power to prevent a cold. Your best bet is to get plenty of the vitamin from the produce in your diet.

Conflicting studies are normal when talking about cold remedies. For every study showing that zinc lozenges are effective, for example, another shows that they aren't. The two best studies to date concluded the lozenges have little benefit for cold sufferers. Zinc nasal gels, for whatever reason, seem to work better.

If you opt for lozenges, follow the package directions carefully; you could become nauseated if you take too much zinc. Once again, it's best to get it from your diet and natural foods.

Antibiotics should be avoided when fighting a cold. Colds are caused by viruses, not by bacteria. We can't say it plainly enough: antibiotics won't cure a cold.

An expert panel of the US Food and Drug Administration has recommended that cold remedies be banned for children under age six because they don't work and in some cases can cause serious side effects — such as liver damage, if a child gets too high a dose of acetaminophen in some combination remedies. Meanwhile, the American College of Chest Physicians recommends not giving cough-and-cold remedies to kids under the age of 15.

A better plan:

• Keep kids well hydrated and give them child-strength pain relievers (never aspirin if there's a fever) to make them comfortable if they're really miserable.

"No medication available in the United States has been shown to effectively treat cough in children," noted University of Pittsburgh Medical Center doctors who reviewed 38 studies of cough and cold remedies. In one definitive Pennsylvania State University study of 100 children ages two to 18 with upper respiratory infections, dextromethorphan and diphenhydramine were no better than a placebo at stopping nighttime coughing.

The cough panel ruled against products such as Claritin and Tavist that containing a non-drowsy antihistamine.The research on expectorant cough medicine is mixed: one study of 239 people with colds found that those who took it had fewer and milder coughs, but another found no benefit. Studies in people with bronchitis were also mixed, leading the chest doctors to give this remedy low marks.

And by the way, never take a product that contains both guaifenisen (an expectorant designed to bring up phlegm) and dextromethorphan (designed to suppress coughs). These work at cross purposes, so the combination makes no sense. A stubborn cough could be a holdover from a serious head cold (in which case, it could last about four weeks), but a longer-lasting cough warrants a trip to the doctor. The cause could be acid reflux, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an iron deficiency or even medications like ACE inhibitors, often used to treat high blood pressure.