Children's colds do not improve with echinacea
Echinacea is not effective in decreasing the severity or shortening the duration of upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) in children, according to the authors of a study published in JAMA (2003;290:2824).
Furthermore, they say that use of echinacea is associated with an increased
risk of a rash developing.
Dr James Taylor, University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues, randomised
524 children aged two to 11 years to receive either Echinacea purpurea or placebo for up to three URTIs over a four-month period. The study
treatment was started at the onset of symptoms and continued for a maximum
of 10 days. A total of 337 URTIs were treated with echinacea and 370
with placebo.
For both treatment groups the median duration of symptoms was nine days,
the researchers report. “There was also no difference in the overall
estimate of severity of upper respiratory tract infection symptoms between
the two treatment groups,” they add. The researchers note that
rashes occurred during 7.1 per cent of the upper respiratory tract infections
treated with echinacea and 2.7 per cent of those treated with placebo.
“Given its lack of documented efficacy and an increased risk for
the development of rash, our results do not support the use of echinacea
for treatment
of URTIs in children aged two to 11 years old. Further studies using
different echinacea formulations, doses, and dosing frequencies are needed
to delineate any possible role for this herb in treating colds in young
patients,” they conclude.
One intriguing result observed by the researchers was that children treated
with echinacea had fewer subsequent URTIs than children given placebo. “It
is conceivable that echinacea stimulated an immune response in study
children that was too late to modify the URTI for which it was given
but provided a window of protection against another URTI,” they
say. |
