Gargling for Common Cold Prevention

A solution for the common cold that's tough to swallow

How do I keep from getting sick this cold and flu season?

The easy answer is frequent hand washing, especially before eating as it's generally viruses getting in your nose or mouth that cause people to get sick and most of the time it comes from the hands, though can also be from people coughing and sneezing in your vicinity.

But as a species, we are terrible at changing habits and this includes touching your face. If I were to tell you right now not to touch your face, which I kinda am, most people will get the urge to touch their face. I don't know why we do it, but it doesn't seem evolutionarily advantageous.

So, let's say you are trying your hardest but still want another layer of protection. Everybody will try to sell you some supplement that will keep you from getting sick. If something worked really well, everybody would be doing the same thing. I think it has something to do with the free market but I came pretty close to failing economics. As you've noticed, everyone swears by something different that prevents colds so my leaning based on the evidence is that we should be looking for the cheapest and easiest and most effective solution.

To that end, after some research, I found a study from Japan from about 15 years ago that looked at gargling as a way to prevent upper respiratory infections. This is apparently a common practice in Japan already. They had people try either doing nothing, gargling with water, or gargling with an iodine solution. They did it 3 times consecutively for about 15 seconds, three times a day, for 2 months.

The thinking is that it takes 8-12 hours of virus being in the back of your throat in order to multiply enough to cause an infection and by doing some deep gargling, you rinse all that out.

What they found was that in the water gargling group, about a third less people ended up getting sick than either the doing nothing group and the iodine garglers. Side note: garglers is my new favorite word and sounds like a colloquial term we would have had back in Texas.

It was a small study and it's tough to assess the validity of things like this which is probably why it hasn't been publicized BUT it seems to have zero risks and it's free and probably just takes a reminder alarm so I think I'm going to give it a try this year and see how it works as between being in the clinic and also around 2 kids in daycare, I feel like I'm as much a magnet for germs as dropping your cotton candy in the sewer.

If you're interested in reading about this study, you can check it out here

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