Cold and flu season is here and unless you’re prepared, you could get taken down for a week or more.

Here is Dr. Minkoff’s best advice to anyone feeling a cold or flu bug coming on.

Dr. Minkoff’s Most Important Advice: Catch It Fast

This is the single most important key to not letting the crud take you down. The second you feel like you might be coming down with something is when you need to take action.

If you can catch it now when it’s small, you have a chance of nipping it in the bud and stopping it before it spreads and becomes a much bigger problem.

Next we’ll cover Dr. Minkoff’s top 6 supplements for stopping colds before they start.

Vitamin A

Dose: 150,000 IU per day

Vitamin A is a critical vitamin for your immune system. It’s especially important for your first line of defense against invaders: mucosal linings.

That stuffy, clogged up sinus feeling? That’s partially due to your lack of vitamin A. Mucosal barriers like your sinus cavity are also full of immune cells that stop viruses and bacteria before they can get into your throat, lungs, or anywhere else.

When you have enough vitamin A, the barriers stay strong and you stay well.

Zinc

Dose: 50-75 mg 3x per day until well

There’s a reason zinc is one of the most well-known natural cold remedies.

Zinc is a tightly regulated mineral and plays a key role in the production of immune cells and regulating inflammation [1-3]. If zinc is deficient, your number of immune cells decreases while inflammation goes up.

By supplementing with high levels of zinc at the first sign of illness, you help your immune system respond to the invading pathogen, creating more immune cells while keeping inflammation under control.

Vitamin C

Dose: 1000mg every hour

There are over 61,102 studies on the role of vitamin C in health. To paraphrase thousands of scientists and hundreds of hours of research: vitamin C is very important.

Vitamin C is both an antioxidant and a key support molecule for the immune system. It is a cofactor for dozens of enzymes and also activates critical genes in immune cells [4,5].

The most important thing to be aware of is that when your body is fighting an infection, your body’s rate of vitamin C consumption goes up. That means when you are sick, you need to constantly resupply.

There is some controversy on how much vitamin C your gut can actually absorb, so the best route is via I.V., but if you do not have access, taking 1000mg every hour will keep your immune system at its best.

Gan Mao Ling

Dose: 6-8 capsules at first sign of symptoms and every day until symptoms disappear

The English translation of “Gan Mao Ling” is “Miraculous Cold Pills,” and that’s exactly what they are. Gan Mao Ling is one of the most renowned herbal formulations of traditional Chinese medicine.

It is a combination of 8 different herbs that act together to clear any stage of cold or flu, but generally works best at the early stages. It is readily available from herbal medicine shops and does not require seeing a doctor of oriental medicine.

Silver Hydrosol

Dose: Dilute 1 dropper in water, gargle, then swallow

We all know silver as that shiny gray metal, but it also has potent antiviral and antibacterial properties when properly formulated. It is important to note that silver hydrosol is NOT colloidal silver. The formulation of silver hydrosol solubilizes silver particles to less than 1 nanometer and maintains a more bioactive positive charge. The smaller size gives it more surface area to interact with pathogens. The positive charge helps disrupt the pathogen life cycle so it cannot spread.

Silver hydrosol is non-toxic and broadly antimicrobial, so after gargling to get the bugs infecting the mucosal membranes of your mouth, you can safely swallow to get it circulating in your system. 

Hydrogen Peroxide Spray

Dose: Spray a 3% into the throat as necessary

You may know about using hydrogen peroxide (H202) to disinfect cuts, but you can also use it to fight infection in your body. By putting diluted 3% hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle, you can spray it into your throat. This puts the disinfecting solution right where the problem is.

Timing Is Everything

Now you’re armed with Dr. Minkoff’s top 6 remedies for staying healthy this cold and flu season! Remember, the single most important part of this game plan is catching it early.

The longer you wait to take action, the less effective these remedies become.

Here’s to staying strong all winter long!

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25462582
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15496046
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9475824
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29099763
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16373990