The Flu is Sweeping Through Canada … Fight it with Echinacea!

The flu is still sweeping across Canada, with high flu activity in many parts of the country.  If you’re looking for another way to help boost your immunity and help avoid the flu, consider popping into your local health food store and asking the staff for standardized extracts of echinacea. This long-beloved herb is getting some newfound and well-deserved attention and praise due to recent research.

This week, as part three of our four-part series about echinacea for the flu, we discuss the results of another groundbreaking study.

Echinacea's triple punch against the flu

Published in the Swiss Journal of Integrative Medicine, this study set out to determine how echinacea can help fight colds and the flu. After all, the researchers noted that echinacea has been shown to be effective even against flu strains that are resistant to a popular antiviral drug used to fight the flu.

The researchers concluded that the standardized echinacea extract provides a triple punch: the “inactivation of cold and flu viruses, inactivation of certain pathogenic respiratory bacteria, and inhibition of the pro-inflammatory response induced by cold and flu agents”—pretty amazing stuff!

For more of the latest news on echinacea, check out part one and part two of our series.