Aw, damn

So pretty much since the first day I've lived in Northern California, people have been throwing echinacea at me.

"Got a cold? Echinacea!" "Sick to your stomach? Echinacea!" "Ooh, shattered arm? Who wants some echinacea?"

Inevitably, a big medical study has revealed that *gasp* echinacea doesn't do crap, at least in terms of fighting a cold. I might as well have been drinking tea made with hemp seed or hippy sweat.

Here's a piece from The New York Times:

But the investigators found that those who took echinacea fared no differently from those who took a placebo: they were just as likely to catch a cold, their symptoms were just as severe, they had just as much virus in their nasal secretions, and they made no more interleukin-8.

Did you hear that, people?! No more interleukin-8! I'm about to rumble with that koala bear wrapped in a blanket on my tea box. But he does look cute....maybe I'll just buy one more box...

I know what's going to happen next. Earthy types are going to say that you can't trust the Western medical establishment. Then they'll keep taking it for every ailment, until someone at their yoga class says, "Oh man, the best thing for that cold is tincture of mungseed oil. Yeah, it totally clears up anything, man. Nature's cure-all, dude."

A few months later, you'll be seeing mungseed oil herbal teas flooding the mainstream market.

You know my health secret? Coffee. Tons and tons of black, strong coffee. Sure, it ramps up your stress level and loosens your bowels, but it seems there's a new health study every month that says it prevents something... diabetes, colon cancer, boredom in the hood.

So I'll keep chugging coffee while hippies tell me to drink seaweed pressings. And I will live forever.