Since there are no known cures for colds and flu, prevention must be your goal. A proactive approach to warding off colds and flu is apt to make your whole life healthier. The most effective way to prevent flu, frankly, is to get the flu shot. It may not be natural, but it works better than anything else. But there are other strategies you can employ as well. WebMD went to Charles B. Inlander, president of The People's Medical Society, for suggestions you may want to try:
#1 Wash Your Hands
Most cold and flu viruses are spread by direct contact. Someone who has the flu sneezes onto their hand, and then touches the telephone, the keyboard, a kitchen glass. The germs can live for hours -- in some cases weeks -- only to be picked up by the next person who touches the same object. So wash your hands often. If no sink is available, rub your hands together very hard for a minute or so. That also helps break up most of the cold germs.
#2 Don't Cover Your Sneezes and Coughs With Your Hands
Because germs and viruses cling to your bare hands, muffling coughs and sneezes with your hands results in passing along your germs to others. When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. If you don't have a tissue, turn your head away from people near you and cough into the air.
#3 Don't Touch Your Face
Cold and flu viruses enter your body through the eyes, nose, or mouth. Touching their faces is the major way children catch colds, and a key way they pass colds on to their parents.
#4 Drink Plenty of Fluids
Water flushes your system, washing out the poisons as it rehydrates you. A typical, healthy adult needs eight 8-ounce glasses of fluids each day. How can you tell if you're getting enough liquid? If the color of your urine runs close to clear, you're getting enough. If it's deep yellow, you need more fluids.
#5 Take a Sauna
Researchers aren't clear about the exact role saunas play in prevention, but one 1989 German study found that people who steamed twice a week got half as many colds as those who didn't. One theory: When you take a sauna you inhale air hotter than 80 degrees, a temperature too hot for cold and flu viruses to survive.
#6 Get Fresh Air
A regular dose of fresh air is important, especially in cold weather when central heating dries you out and makes your body more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses. Also, during cold weather more people stay indoors, which means more germs are circulating in crowded, dry rooms.
#7 Do Aerobic Exercise Regularly
Aerobic exercise speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood; makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood; and makes you sweat once your body heats up. These exercises help increase the body's natural virus-killing cells.
#8 Eat Foods Containing Phytochemicals
"Phyto" means plants, and the natural chemicals in plants give the vitamins in food a supercharged boost. So put away the vitamin pill, and eat dark green, red, and yellow vegetables and fruits.
#9 Eat Yogurt
Some studies have shown that eating a daily cup of low-fat yogurt can reduce your susceptibility to colds by 25 percent. Researchers think the beneficial bacteria in yogurt may stimulate production of immune system substances that fight disease.
#10 Don't Smoke
Statistics show that heavy smokers get more severe colds and more frequent ones.
Even being around smoke profoundly zaps the immune system. Smoke dries out your nasal passages and paralyzes cilia. These are the delicate hairs that line the mucous membranes in your nose and lungs, and with their wavy movements, sweep cold and flu viruses out of the nasal passages. Experts contend that one cigarette can paralyze cilia for as long as 30 to 40 minutes.
#11 Cut Alcohol Consumption
Heavy alcohol use destroys the liver, the body's primary filtering system, which means that germs of all kinds won't leave your body as fast. The result is, heavier drinkers are more prone to initial infections as well as secondary complications. Alcohol also dehydrates the body -- it actually takes more fluids from your system than it puts in.
#12 Relax
If you can teach yourself to relax, you can activate your immune system on demand. There's evidence that when you put your relaxation skills into action, your interleukins -- leaders in the immune system response against cold and flu viruses -- increase in the bloodstream. Train yourself to picture an image you find pleasant or calming. Do this 30 minutes a day for several months. Keep in mind, relaxation is a learnable skill, but it is not doing nothing. People who try to relax, but are in fact bored, show no changes in blood chemicals.
The People's Medical Society is a nonprofit consumer health advocacy organization. Charles B. Inlander is president, and co-author of 77 Ways to Beat Cold and Flu.
Reviewed by Charlotte E. Grayson, MD, September 2003.
Originally published October 2001.
SOURCE: Charles B. Inlander, president of The People's Medical Society, a nonprofit consumer health advocacy organization, and author of 77 Ways to Beat Cold and Flu.
© 2003 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
I was right with you until number 11.
I swear by my formula for fighting colds and flu. It seems to work, as when the bugs go around, I either don't get them, or get mild versions of them.
The center of the system is well-made espresso. Drip coffee not only will not do, but is a step in the wrong direction. Milk drinks are only tolerable before 10am, otherwise they will only weaken you.
At the first sign of symptoms, I drink shots of espresso in regular intervals throughout the day. I drink lots of water, and take Vitimin C. I get my rest and avoid red wine, greasy food, ice cream, and so forth. I have a Tablespoon of good cognac before bed. If I have any nasal congestion, I eat wasabi. I eat a lot of garlic, too.
Basically, I give my immune system a chance to prove its worthiness. However, if it falters, it recovery and/or prevention seem to be in stagnation, then I move to phase II, which is the Hard Headed cure.
I continue the espresso cure (actually, I do that even when I am completely well, too) act as if I am not sick at all. I drink a good chilled Sapphire martini, eat normally, drink red wine with dinner, finish with ice cream, stay up late, work hard, and all of that. Generally it works well and I am fully recovered in a day. If it is a particularly nasty bug, a cigar might be required.
It sounds crazy, but I do not get sick as often or as hard or as long as most people. Perhaps it is my constitution, but I think it is more to do with attitude. People are getting wimpier and wimpier.
I imagine that in a couple of decades most of the population will be too caught up in feeling ill that they will not be able to leave their houses.