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American Morning

'House Call'

Aired December 03, 2003 - 09:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What's good for mom and dad might not be so good for the kids, at least when it comes to the use of a common herbal remedy. That is the latest finding in the controversy over the use of echinacea. Joining us this morning from the CNN Center with details, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
Hey, Sanjay. Good morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Soledad.

It may not be that good for mom and dad, either. We're going to talk about that as well, but there is a study now looking at echinacea in children. It's a huge industry, $300 million worth of products. We have some of them here. I spent $65 my producer told me this morning on the products we have listed here. Marianne Falco (ph) went out and purchased these. The pediatric studies has been something that's been a long time coming. Do they work in children? And that was the subject of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They looked at 524 children, all age 2 to 11, and kids who developed colds six to eight times a year on average, about to seven to nine days in duration.

And what they found, after giving them echinacea, about the time that they started a cold, two things: a, it did not shorten the duration of the cold. And b, it did not decrease the severity of the cold. Now there may have been a small reduction in subsequent infections later on down the line, but that was very small, to be sure.

But bottom line here is people are taking echinacea for their children, getting it for their children, does not seem to really do anything at all -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Well then let's talk about what echinacea does for adults. Everyone assumes that it will lessen the severity and shorten the duration of the cold. Does it actually work in adults?

GUPTA: Well, you know, it's interesting, because there have been a lot of studies on adults, more so than in children, and there have been some small studies that show it does have some benefit in both those things, actually reducing the duration, as well as decreasing the severity as well. Those are a bit controversial, also. A couple of things to keep in mind is echinacea really is an herb. So it's very hard to regulate, a, the dosing, and b, the quantity of the specific herb you get.

There are three different species of echinacea that are important when talking about medicinal properties, and there are different ways to extract it. You can have it in pills, lozenges, you can have it in syrups, all sorts of different things, so the proponents of echinacea will say, until you study all the different root extracts you're not going to snow for sure whether or not it actually has any benefit. That study has not been done -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Since you can't regulate the dosing, and as you say, you really can't regulate the quality, should children be taking any herbal remedies outside of echinacea?

GUPTA: Well, you know, we're talking about echinacea today, and there have been other herbal remedies that should probably be studied. The herbal alternative complementary medicine industry is not something that's been studied very well. So we take these sorts of studies very seriously. It's hard to comment on other herbs based on this particular study.

What we can say is that there's probably not significant side effects to taking echinacea, and it's probably not going to harm you. There are a few different side effects, which we sort of dug up. People can get an upset stomach, nausea, dizziness. The kids who took the echinacea in this particular study were more likely to develop a rash as part of an allergic reaction than those who were taking a placebo.

But other than that, all we can say, based on this, is that echinacea does not appear to work in terms of decreasing either duration of severity of colds.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. Sanjay, thanks.

GUPTA: All right. Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 3, 2003 - 09:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What's good for mom and dad might not be so good for the kids, at least when it comes to the use of a common herbal remedy. That is the latest finding in the controversy over the use of echinacea. Joining us this morning from the CNN Center with details, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
Hey, Sanjay. Good morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Soledad.

It may not be that good for mom and dad, either. We're going to talk about that as well, but there is a study now looking at echinacea in children. It's a huge industry, $300 million worth of products. We have some of them here. I spent $65 my producer told me this morning on the products we have listed here. Marianne Falco (ph) went out and purchased these. The pediatric studies has been something that's been a long time coming. Do they work in children? And that was the subject of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They looked at 524 children, all age 2 to 11, and kids who developed colds six to eight times a year on average, about to seven to nine days in duration.

And what they found, after giving them echinacea, about the time that they started a cold, two things: a, it did not shorten the duration of the cold. And b, it did not decrease the severity of the cold. Now there may have been a small reduction in subsequent infections later on down the line, but that was very small, to be sure.

But bottom line here is people are taking echinacea for their children, getting it for their children, does not seem to really do anything at all -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Well then let's talk about what echinacea does for adults. Everyone assumes that it will lessen the severity and shorten the duration of the cold. Does it actually work in adults?

GUPTA: Well, you know, it's interesting, because there have been a lot of studies on adults, more so than in children, and there have been some small studies that show it does have some benefit in both those things, actually reducing the duration, as well as decreasing the severity as well. Those are a bit controversial, also. A couple of things to keep in mind is echinacea really is an herb. So it's very hard to regulate, a, the dosing, and b, the quantity of the specific herb you get.

There are three different species of echinacea that are important when talking about medicinal properties, and there are different ways to extract it. You can have it in pills, lozenges, you can have it in syrups, all sorts of different things, so the proponents of echinacea will say, until you study all the different root extracts you're not going to snow for sure whether or not it actually has any benefit. That study has not been done -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Since you can't regulate the dosing, and as you say, you really can't regulate the quality, should children be taking any herbal remedies outside of echinacea?

GUPTA: Well, you know, we're talking about echinacea today, and there have been other herbal remedies that should probably be studied. The herbal alternative complementary medicine industry is not something that's been studied very well. So we take these sorts of studies very seriously. It's hard to comment on other herbs based on this particular study.

What we can say is that there's probably not significant side effects to taking echinacea, and it's probably not going to harm you. There are a few different side effects, which we sort of dug up. People can get an upset stomach, nausea, dizziness. The kids who took the echinacea in this particular study were more likely to develop a rash as part of an allergic reaction than those who were taking a placebo.

But other than that, all we can say, based on this, is that echinacea does not appear to work in terms of decreasing either duration of severity of colds.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. Sanjay, thanks.

GUPTA: All right. Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com