During the drive home tonight, I caught some of Terry Gross’s interview with Jennifer Ackerman, author of Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold. It’s a timely topic for me because the arrival of autumn puts me in a heightened paranoid state about catching something from a sniffling colleague (even though I seem more predisposed to summer colds lately). In the interview, Ackerman patiently explained that herbal and folk remedies are almost completely ineffective at preventing or curing colds, although chicken soup may have some mild anti-inflammatory properties. In a separate interview with the New Yorker, she suggests that the best way to avoid colds is to engage in frequent hand-washing and avoid touching one’s face. I shouldn’t have any problem with at least one of those recommendations.
