$2.2 Million herbal cold remedy study underwa...( CHARLOTTESVILLE Va. August 27 The po...),Health

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., August 27 The popular herbal supplement echinacea may have earned its manufacturers nearly $70 million in 1998, according to industry figures. Yet the alleged cold remedy is not yet scientifically proven to be effective in clinical research trials. To find out if echinacea really fights colds, University of Virginia Health System investigators have received $2.2 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a three-year clinical trial.

"Part of the problem surrounding the study of echinacea is that all of the products containing it are different," said principal investigator Dr. Ronald B. Turner, professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, at U.Va. "No one has identified an active factor yet."

Numerous variables could influence what in echinacea works and how, Turner said. The part of the plant used, the growing conditions and season, how it is processed and which of the plant's three species -- each of which has a different chemical composition -- are in a product could all possibly affect its medicinal value.

The study will use one crop of echinacea plants processed using three different extraction methods to produce three different concentrations of various echinacea constitutents. The composition of these three products has been carefully characterized in the laboratory of a leading plant chemist at the University of Graz in Austria, a subcontractor for the study. These three products -- which are identical except for their extraction methods -- will be administered to study subjects.

"If you buy Product X off the shelf today and you go back six months later and buy the same brand, it may be completely different from the first thing you bought," Turner said. "Echinacea and other supplements present a huge problem with safety and standardization, as well as for research, because if you don't know what's actually in the product, studies on it can't be stan
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Contact: Cathy Wolz
434-924-5679
University of Virginia Health System
27-Aug-2002

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