Last year we were told that Echinacea does not prevent colds; a new report says that researchers have REviewed a dozen studies and have REvised conclusions from these studies to show that as suspected by herbalists for hundreds of years, echinacea really does help to strengthen the immune system:

The studies they reviewed took into account two ways of testing against the common cold. One way was to allow the participants to catch a cold “naturally” and see how effective echinacea was at this. The other way was to inject participants with rhinovirus, one of the many viruses that causes the common cold.

Echinacea reduced cold incidence by 65 per cent when it was used as a protective against catching it naturally. It still gave protection against the injected rhinovirus but this was only at 35 per cent. The researchers said that:

“With over 200 viruses capable of causing the common cold, echinacea could have modest effect against rhinovirus but marked effects against other viruses.”

Retrograde periods do serve a purpose; they enable us to go back and REview, REvise, REnovate, REconcile. Two steps forward, one step back but eventually we do get there!