When a three-year-old child with leukemia was given a zinc gluconate tablet to restore a zinc deficiency, and to stimulate her immune system, she accidentally discovered a rapid way to end the common cold.
Because she had a sore throat, the child sucked on the zinc gluconate tablet instead of swallowing it and she allowed it to dissolve in her mouth. The sore throat was due to an endless series of colds the child had suffered, and the zinc was prescribed because she had just come down with symptoms of yet another cold. Curiously, however, instead of turning into another full-blown cold, within twelve hours her cold symptoms had vanished altogether.
Impressed, the child’s father carried out the same therapy on other family members as they caught colds. He also repeated it the next time the leukemic child caught a cold. In nearly every case, cold symptoms disappeared within twelve to twenty-four hours.
Two years later a study was authored by Dr. William Halcomb, an Austin, Texas family practitioner. Reportedly, a total of 146 people, all of whom had had a viral cold for three days or less, took either a 180 mg zinc gluconate lozenge (containing 22 mg of essential zinc) or a placebo.
They began by initially taking two tablets, then every two hours during the waking day, they took another 180 mg zinc gluconate lozenge. Not more than twelve tablets were taken in any one day. Each subject was instructed to hold the lozenge in the mouth for ten minutes until it had completely dissolved and not to chew or swallow it. In this way, the zinc saturated the lining of the mouth, tongue and throat. The test subjects kept taking the lozenges at this same rate until all cold symptoms had vanished. But no one was permitted to continue taking these amounts of zinc for more than seven days.
Results were quite dramatic: 11 percent of the zinc-treated group lost all cold symptoms within twelve hours; 22 percent were cold-free in twenty-four hours; 50 percent were cold-free in about four days; and 88 percent were cold-free in seven days. By comparison, all of the placebo group still had cold symptoms after four days; and only 49 percent were cold-free by the seventh day. On balance, the zinc-treated group shortened the duration of cold symptoms by seven days. Results were the same whether a person had a mild or a severe cold.
*173\30\4*
