Quercetin: A Promising Treatment for the Common Cold

Abstract

Copyright: © 2014 Kinker B, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Rhinovirus infections have afflicted humanity since the dawn of civilization, and are difficult to treat even with modern medicine. Throughout the ages many remedies have been used for the common cold, often caused by the rhinovirus. Recent research points to a flavanol anti-oxidant, quercetin, as having therapeutic properties. Quercetin has been shown to reduce viral internalization and replication in vitro, and viral load, lung inflammation and airways hyper-responsiveness in vivo.