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Don’t blame your stuffy head if you can’t find your usual decongestant on drugstore shelves. Cold and allergy medications like Sudafed and Claritin-D have been pushed behind the counter because of their pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in the illegal street drug methamphetamine. And just asking for your favorite remedy may not be enough. In some states, you might need to show ID and sign a form saying how much you’re buying. And you may not be allowed to buy as much as you want. As a result, drug companies have launched on-the-shelf decongestants without pseudoephedrine. But do they work as well as the old standbys? We checked with William Soller, PhD, executive director of the Center for Consumer Self Care at University of California, San Francisco. His advice: Read the rest of this entry »

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Echinacea is consistently among the top-selling supplements, with U.S. consumers typically spending more than $100 million on it every year. But a study published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) panned the herb, saying it doesn’t prevent colds or make symptoms less annoying. The lead researcher—Ronald B. Turner, MD, a pediatrics professor at the University of Virginia—thinks most of the evidence in favor of echinacea is far too weak to make it a reasonable remedy. Naturally, echinacea supporters disagree. And they recently panned Turner’s findings, saying the amount of echinacea used in his study was roughly three times less than what veteran herbalists recommend. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief film

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Echinacea has as many supporters as it does naysayers—and their voices become louder this time of year, when cold and flu season is in full swing. While some claim the herb is a godsend against sneezing and sniffling, others claim that standing on their heads would yield similar results. Read the rest of this entry »