Supplements, Soaps and Sweeteners

Cold and flu season is in full force, and many of us are hunkering down indoors to wait out the winter months. To keep germs from hitchhiking home, you may be tempted to stock up on antibacterial soaps and swig herbal supplements that claim to fight off the common cold. But some of these products, recent studies have found, do far more harm than good.

Antibacterial Soaps

Antibacterial soaps are no more effective than ordinary soap and warm water at preventing the spread of infection, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel concluded in October. Some products even contain ingredients that are harmful to your health. Triclosan, a commonly used germ-killer, is structurally similar to dioxins and may contain trace amounts of one dioxin—2,3,7,8-TCDD, a known carcinogen. Triclosan can react with the chlorinated water in your sink to form chloroform, another probable human carcinogen. When flushed into streams and rivers, triclosan persists for months, and sunlight converts it into other harmful dioxins. These chemicals can be ingested by fish and enter the food chain, and they have been found in breast milk. "When we are done with the chemical, it comes back to us in food and we eat it," says Rolf Halden, Ph.D., P.E., at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore.

The chemicals also can create more hardy, antibiotic-resistant forms of bacteria. In a 2004 study published in FEMS Microbiology Letters, a harmful strain of E. coli bacteria that survived treatment with triclosan became less susceptible to 7 of 12 antibiotics tested. "Using these soaps can produce resistant strains of bacteria that may do you no harm today but could harm someone else tomorrow," says Stuart Levy, M.D., president of Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics. And antibacterial soaps do nothing to kill off cold or flu viruses.

Keeping Well During Cold and Flu Season:

*Take care of yourself—get enough sleep, exercise, drink lots of water and eat healthily.

*Wash hands often in warm water and soap for 10 to 15 seconds after preparing and eating food, using the bathroom, wiping a runny nose and caring for a sick or injured person.

*Avoid touching your nose and eyes.

*Cough into a clean handkerchief or your sleeve rather than into your hand.

*To cut down on overuse of antibiotics, question your doctor about any antibiotic prescription. If you need the drugs, take the entire dose as prescribed.