Nothing to sneeze at: can garlic prevent the common cold? (wellness).

A powerful cough. Nose blowing that rivals an air horn blast. Sneezes so severe that even good china in the next room isn't safe. What's happening here--and how can you prevent it from happening again?

An organism called a rhinovirus--so tiny that 15,000 lined up side by side would barely span the space between two words on this page--has entered your body. Finding a warm spot in your throat, this single virus has attached itself to a cell and commandeered the cell's own replicating capability. Office copiers should work so well: Within hours, that single virus can replicate itself more than 100,000 times. Odds are, this battle won't be won for another seven days--the average length of the dreaded common cold, the most widespread viral infection in the world. How can you stop this misery? You can't. The cold virus essentially has become part of you, part of your cells. The trick is to avoid the commandeering of your cells in the first place. But how do you do that--vitamin C?

Nope. Large doses of vitamin C--2,000 mg daily in four divided doses--during the weeks prior to catching a cold may lessen the severity of the symptoms, but controversy reigns over whether vitamin G can actually shorten the duration of a cold. Some research also says that zinc gluconate lozenges or echinacea can shave a day or two off a cold's cycle.

But only one supplement has been proven to actually reduce your chances of coming down with a cold in the first place: garlic.

Studies have found that daily garlic supplements containing allicin--the major biologically active agent that the plant produces-reduce the risk of catching a cold by half. And garlic supplements seem to be effective in treating infections caused by the "super-bug," methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

In a 2001 study conducted in East Sussex, UK, half of the 146 volunteers were given one garlic capsule each day, while the remaining volunteers were given a placebo. Over a 90-day period, researchers recorded just 24 colds among those taking garlic supplements compared to 65 colds among those taking the ...