Boost Your Body's Defenses to Fight the Common Cold

By Al Sears, MD

Feel a cold coming on? You may want to stay away from the pharmacy.

Over-the-counter drugs only relieve symptoms. They don't get rid of the viral infection causing them.

Instead of relying on over-the-counter drugs, keep yourself from getting sick in the first place. A lot of people think there is nothing you can do to stave off the common cold. But in my practice, we've proven that's not true. You can, for example:

• Take vitamin C. You should take 500 mg a day of this potent antioxidant consistently. If you feel a cold coming on, increase that to 1,000 mg. This old standby really is one of your body's best immune defenses - if you take enough. The recommended daily allowance of 60 mg a day will do nothing.

• Use Echinacea, an herb that Native Americans have been using for centuries. While it's a strong immune booster, it's best not to take it regularly. Drink one to two cups of Echinacea tea a day during cold and flu season. You can also take Echinacea capsules, 500 mg a day - but I prefer the tea.

• Try Goldenseal, another Native American plant. This is a strong bacterial fighter, including the bacteria that cause strep throat. You can find powdered Goldenseal in capsule form at most health food stores. Gargle a solution of Goldenseal and water at the first sign of a sore throat. Use 100 mg three times a day.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears is a practicing physician and the author of The Doctor's Heart Cure. He is also a nutritional expert, a fitness expert, and is certified by the American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine. Find Dr. Sears's practical solutions and get immediate access to more than 500 of his articles by visiting www.alsearsmd.com.]

The Language Perfectionist: Should You Give Moot the Boot?

By Don Hauptman

Consider these passages, drawn from an Internet search:

• "I think if it handles the same as other cars in its segment, then being heavier is a moot point."

• "This makes tamoxifen look good, but it's a moot issue to the women in question. If the side effects of tamoxifen are this bad, why is it being used at all... ?"

• "Scherer assumes that conservatives buy the premise that the government's purpose in taking wealth is to redistribute it. We do not, so his entire argument is moot."

In all three of these examples, moot is used to mean settled, irrelevant, or academic. But does it?

Well, yes and no. This is one of those tricky words. So pay attention...

The original meaning of moot was precisely the opposite: unsettled, debatable, subject to argument. But probably as a result of its use in the term moot court, it came to have the sense of hypothetical or meaningless.

Thus, moot can be categorized as a contronym or Janus word, a member of that elite group of words that have two contradictory meanings. (This fascinating roster also includes sanction and cleave.)

Both senses of moot remain in use, so a reader or listener who is familiar with the original meaning might reasonably ask, "What are you trying to say?" To preclude such ambiguity and confusion, I recommend that you avoid using the word.

So what do you use instead? You have many choices. For instance, the writer of the first example above could have said that the car's weight doesn't matter or is unimportant.

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant.]

It's Fun to Know: Copyrighting Your Elvis Sighting

Government bureaucrats are nothing if not thorough. Case in point: There's an entry on the FAQ page of the United States Copyright Office that deals with the question of copyrighting your Elvis sighting.

Turns out you can't do it, because copyright law doesn't protect sightings or the subjects of photographs. But you can copyright your photo of an incognito Elvis for a small fee.

No word yet from the copyright office about copyrighting your Bigfoot sightings.

Word to the Wise: Transmute

To "transmute" (trans-MYOOT) - from the Latin for "to change utterly" - is to transform from one nature, form, substance, or state into another.

Example (as used by Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker in The Beach: The History of Paradise on Earth): "Sand that once was rock becomes rock once again as it slowly sediments and compresses into layers of sandstone, which, in turn, transmute into sand."

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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2600, 02-24-09], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.