DermalPATCHES - Echinacea

Echinacea - Feel a Cold Coming on?
Cut your sick time in half. Feel a cold or flu coming on? Got a vaginal or sinus infection? Then echinacea (eh-kin-AY-sha) may be able to help. Many studies show that this plant stimulates the immune system and hastens the healing of infectious diseases.
Echinacea fights colds and other infections by stimulating the immune system. When disease-causing micro-organisms invade the body, injured cells secrete chemicals that attract infection-fighting white blood cells, or macrophages, to the area. The macrophages (literally, "big eaters") then engulf and digest the germs. Echinacea boosts the macrophages' ability to destroy microbial invaders.
In addition, echinacea acts like the body's own virus-fighting compound, interferon. Before a virus-infected cell dies, it releases a tiny amount of interferon, which boosts the ability of surrounding cells to resist infection. Echinacea does essentially the same thing. Researchers bathed cells in echinacea extract, then exposed them to two potent viruses -- influenza and herpes. Compared with untreated cells, only a small fraction of the echinacea-boosted cells became infected.
Echinacea is safe when used as directed. But people with severe illnesses (e.g., multiple sclerosis) and auto-immune conditions (e.g., lupus) should avoid it (immune stimulation can aggravate auto-immune conditions). [3] No wonder it's America's most popular herbal medicine, especially during the cold and flu season.
Latest News: Swedish researchers recently judged 60 workers in a large furniture factory to be experiencing the initial stages of a cold. Half the workers were given a placebo and half were given a tincture, or alcohol extract, of echinacea (20 drops of tincture in water every two hours for the first day, then three times a day for up to 10 days). In the placebo group, the average worker's recovery time was eight days. In the echinacea group, it was half that -- just four days.
Existing Medical Research: Several studies have shown that echinacea stimulates the immune system. This action explains its usefulness in treating infectious diseases. In a 1997 study, researchers gave 160 people with initial cold or flu symptoms echinacea for eight to 10 days. In the echinacea group, recovery was 3 days earlier. German researchers studied 180 adults diagnosed with flu. Compared with the subjects in the placebo and low-dose groups, those taking high doses of echinacea enjoyed significantly speedier resolutions of fever, chills, muscle aches, and other flu symptoms. In another German study, researchers recruited 203 women with chronic vaginal yeast infections and treated them with either a topical pharmaceutical antifungal cream alone or the same cream plus a tincture of echinacea for 10 weeks. After six months, 60% of the women in the cream-only group experienced at least one recurrence of yeast infection. But for the women in the cream-plus-echinacea group, the figure was just 16%.