Cold Treatments N ew cold treatment ideas require testing in clinical trials to determine if they actually work.
Colds are a self-limited illness from which virtually all people recover in a few days.
The duration and severity of a cold varies from one person to another and also varies in the same individual over time. If all colds were exactly alike in all people at all times, it would also not be necessary to perform clinical trials on new treatment ideas. Interesting examples are available of how curious subjects in clinical trials have sometimes been able to guess correctly about whether they were on the experimental drug or placebo and thus unblinded themselves. The benefit of most effective treatments for most self-limited diseases are not so dramatic that it is always obvious that the treatment is effective in an individual case. F or these reasons, an individual taking a cold treatment based on the new idea may be mislead into believing the experimental treatment was effective because the cold being treated was naturally mild or because the person experienced a placebo reaction or both.