Research Trends in Complementary Medical Therapy for the Common Cold

감기에 대한 보완 의학적 연구 동향 - Pubmed를 중심으로 -

Objectives: To help the Oriental medicine clinical studies for the common cold treatment, this study analyzed the tendency of research into complementary medicine on the common cold recently published in PubMed. Methods: This study analyzed 26 research papers on complementary medicine on the common cold published in PubMed Over the past 10 years. It measured annually and for each country the number of papers published, the number of subjects, the period of research, the area of trial, the method of study, the objective of study, and intervention, respectively and intervention, the objective of study, and the result of trials overall. Results: There were research papers concerning treatment, prevention, safety of herbal medicine, inducement, and improvement of symptoms of the common cold in the study objective the most among them concerned treatment of the common cold. There were more positive results compared to negative results for treatment and prevention. The results for safety and symptom improvement were positive, while the results for the inducement were indeterminate. There were research papers about using food and medicine, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, and cold exposure in intervention the most among them were about using food and medicine. The food and medicine interventions were Echinacea preparations, vitamins, zinc preparations, Baptisia, Thuja, the root of North American ginseng, probiotic bacteria, troxerutin, garlic, Andrographis paniculata, and caffeine. The use of Echinacea preparations was the most frequent among them. Conclusions: Recent research results of complementary medicine on the common cold were more positive than negative.