Respect For Your Elders After 42 years as an owner in the NFL, Art Modell was supposed to be honored at the Ravens last home game of the regular season. It also could have been his last game as their owner. A record crowd showed up to watch the Ravens take on the Steelers, and to thank the man that brought football back to Baltimore after 12 long years. But while a new attendance record was set at M&T Bank Stadium on that historic day, one fan was notably missing. Art Modell was home with the flu. With all the hype out there, you would think the flu vaccine was a cure or at least a treatment for the dreaded disease, but that isn't the case at all of course. In fact, the optimal months to get a flu shot are well past. So at this point, it's time to start thinking about what to do if you should come down with the flu so you won't get sidelined like Art. In the e-Alert "The Big 3" (12/11/03), I told you about several natural agents you can use to help your body's immune system fight off a viral invader. Today I'll tell you about another natural treatment that has been shown to cut the duration of the flu in half. For hundreds of years in Europe and North America, the elderberry has been used to treat many ailments, from asthma to bronchitis, as well as stomach and urinary tract problems. In fact Hippocrates, the Greek "father of medicine," called the elderberry tree his "medicine chest." Elderberries and elderberry juice have also long been used as treatments for the common cold and influenza. Knowing this, Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu, a prominent Israeli virologist, isolated compounds in black elderberry that disable the protein that viruses use to infect healthy cells. From this research, Dr. Mumcuoglu developed an elderberry extract called Sambucol, which many of you probably heard about last year from William Campbell Douglass, M.D., in his Daily Dose e-letter. Now, a recent study (to be published in an upcoming issue of The Journal of International Medical Research) has demonstrated the effectiveness of Sambucol in easing the symptoms and shortening the duration of the flu. More than 50 patients diagnosed with type A flu, and six patients with type B flu, were enrolled in the study conducted by researchers at the University of Oslo School of Medicine in Norway. At the onset of flu symptoms, subjects were given either one tablespoon of Sambucol or a placebo four times a day for five days. The patients who received Sambucol were considered recovered from the flu in 3.1 days, on average, while those in the placebo group recovered in 7.1 days, on average. These results confirm the findings of a 1993 study conducted on patients during a flu outbreak in Israel. As reported in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, almost 90 percent of the subjects in that study who took Sambucol daily recovered from flu symptoms within three days. Those in the placebo group took six or more days to recover. Several of the reports about Sambucol have stressed the fact that neither Sambucol nor black elderberry has been tested as a preventive against the flu. But a 2001 laboratory study at the Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel, showed that in addition to having antiviral properties, Sambucol activated the immune response by increasing the production of inflammatory cytokine - the proteins that regulate the immune system. So even though no trials can yet confirm Sambucol's use as a preventive agent, the Hadassah University researchers theorized that Sambucol, "could also have an immunoprotective or immunostimulatory effect when administered to cancer or AIDS patients in conjunction with chemotherapeutic or other treatments." Obviously, much more research will be required to demonstrate Sambucol's effectiveness in the prevention of influenza and other diseases. But until then, the evidence of its ability to quickly relieve flu symptoms continues to increase. Sambucol is carried by many health food stores, and is available through sources easily found on the Internet by entering "Sambucol" in any search engine. To Your Good Health, Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute Sources:
"Black Elderberry Extract May Reduce Flu Symptoms" NutraIngredients, 12/12/03, nutraingredients.com
"Don't Let the Flu Bugs Bite" William Campbell Douglass II, M.D., Daily Dose, 11/15/02
"Inhibition of Several Strains of Influenza Virus in Vitro and Reduction of Symptoms by an Elderberry Extract (Sambucus nigra L.) During an Outbreak of Influenza B Panama" Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, v. 1, no. 4, Winter 1995, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
"The Effect of Sambucol, a Black Elderberry-Based, Natural Product, on the Production of Human Cytokines: I. Inflammatory Cytokines" European Cytokine Network, v. 12, no. 2, April-June 2001, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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