Flu Breakthrough: The Search for a Universal Vaccine
Tired of having to get a different flu shot -- or two -- every year? Someday one shot may protect us against all the strains.
The Search for a Cold Cure continued...
The question Liggett is trying to answer now is whether the viral strains
he's analyzed evolved many years ago, or whether repeated combining of DNA --
called recombination -- by various strains is causing new ones to keep popping
up all the time. "If it freely recombined and we know that people can be
infected with two viruses at one time, there would be an almost infinite number
of strains. That would be a bad thing," he says.
Liggett has made great strides, but he admits there is still a lot to learn
about the cold virus, such as how the virus varies from person to person and
from season to season, and which strains are most virulent.
His next step is to do more extensive DNA analysis on rhinoviruses taken
from 3,000 people to determine which group or groups of viruses might be worth
pursuing for new therapies. If he's able to figure out which strains are coming
back from year to year, and why some virus strains are more infectious than
others, Liggett is hopeful that highly effective cold treatments might one day
be a reality.
That day might be a long time coming, though. Some experts, including Ronald
Eccles of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University in Wales, think the
common cold is one nuisance we might never be able to shake. "We may be able to
control some of these viruses," Eccles says, "but I believe that as long as we
have noses, there will be viruses that cause colds."
Myths About the Common Cold
There's still a lot of folk wisdom circulating about the common cold -- some
of which is true and some of which is not.
Chicken soup. Grandma was pretty close on this one. So-called Jewish
penicillin slows the activity of immune substances that stimulate mucus
production, helping clear up stuffy noses and coughs. Other cold-fighting
nutritional remedies include a hot drink, or even a hot pepper, to soothe a
Touch-and-go. Do cold viruses actually live on surfaces? Yes -- the
rhinovirus can linger on countertops, door handles, and other frequently
touched surfaces for hours after being touched by someone with a cold. If
you’re the next person to touch one of those surfaces and you put your fingers
in your eyes, nose, or mouth, you could be in for a nasty infection.
"C" for colds. Vitamin C was once touted as the cure-all for the
common cold, but the research just doesn’t hold up. It might slightly shorten
and weaken colds, but vitamin C won't stop you from getting sick in the first
place, and large doses can cause side effects like upset stomach.
Feed a cold. The first part of this old wives' tale might have some
truth to it. A Dutch study found some evidence that eating a meal boosts the
immune response needed to fight off the cold virus. And no, you don't want to
starve a flu. Plus, it's especially important to get fluids.
Remedy reality. Can echinacea and zinc cold remedies help you avoid a
cold? The evidence is mixed, but overall, research doesn't support the use of
either for the prevention of colds. And steer clear of zinc nasal products; the
FDA warns they might permanently reduce your sense of smell.