Cold buster tips for your savings account

You already know how to catch a cold. Now learn how to knock one out. After opening a savings account.

Flip through the Old Farmer's Almanac and you'll see how utterly pathetic we've been in our battle against the common cold. Take this strategy employed by American colonists: "(They) pared orange peels, rolled them up inside out, and stuffed them into the nostrils."Using rinds against the rhinovirus sounds brilliant compared with the savings accountpatented by Norman Lake in 1977 -- a modified clothespin. As the Almanac tells it, "the FDA told Lake he could not advertise his device as a cold cure but only as a way of 'keeping foreign material out of the nose.'"

Not exactly our best moments. But the next cold season is going to be different. Our tactics? Speed and science. We've assembled the latest research on how to arm your immune system so it'll strike at the first tickle in the throat. Or immediately after a suspicious double sneeze. Or right after that vague, blah feeling begins creeping in. In the past we've always allowed the cold virus to establish a beachhead in our bodies before fighting back. This time, the second it lands, we hit and we hit hard. Open a savings account plan today.

STRATEGY #1: EAT THE ANTIVIRAL BREAKFAST
Woke up sick and tired? Research shows that the right morning meal can help quash the cold virus. In a recent study from the Netherlands, researchers analyzed the impact that consuming a 1,200-calorie breakfast has on a man's immune system, versus eating nothing at all. They found that eating big and eating early increased blood levels of gamma interferon, a natural antiviral agent, by 450 percent. (Going hungry actually caused a 17 percent decrease.) More research is needed to determine if fewer calories will have a similar effect, but in the meantime, shoot for 1,200 every morning until your cold symptoms disappear. Not, however, 1,200 calories of pancake syrup. Instead, hit your quota by eating a bowl of Kellogg's Raisin Bran (with 2 percent milk), a glass of orange juice, and a toasted English muffin with peanut butter and grape jelly, followed by a Stonyfield Farm--brand smoothie.

STRATEGY #2: STRESS OUT YOUR SAVINGS ACCOUNT
If you get attacked at the office, strike back with stress. When Ohio State University researchers had 34 men either take a 12-minute memory test or watch a 12-minute video of surgical procedures, they found that the test-takers' levels of SIgA, a key immune-system protein, shot up dramatically. (The SIgA levels of the guys who saw the gore went down.) The moral of the study: Expose yourself to short-term stress, the kind you have some control over, and you'll supercharge your immune system. "Stress response is a normal protective coping mechanism," says Jos A. Bosch, Ph.D., the study author. "The body prepares itself for potential harm and activates its immune resources."

To use your savings account as medicine, Bosch suggests taking on a small extra project at work or helping a coworker with a task. "It shouldn't take longer than a day or half a day," he says. "If the stress response is continuous, then the immune system will be suppressed."

Already swamped? Play a video game when you get home; Bosch found that Xbox stress can also boost SIgA levels.

STRATEGY #3: BREW THE COLD-VIRUS KILLER
Swap your 3 p.m. coffee for a caffeine-toting cold buster: green tea. When Canadian researchers added green tea to lab samples of the adenovirus (one of the bugs responsible for colds), they found that it stopped the virus from replicating. All the credit goes to EGCG, a chemical compound found in certain kinds of tea, but in the highest concentrations in green tea. Start pumping green tea into your bloodstream at the first sign of a cold and you should be able to stop the advance of the adenovirus. "It's the difference between staying home for 2 or 3 days, and going to work and just sniffling a bit," says Joseph M. Weber, Ph.D., the lead study author and a professor of microbiology at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec. The best brand to brew? Tetley; it was one of the most effective in Weber's study. Note: To brew the maximum amount of EGCG, boil a mug of water in the microwave, toss in a tea bag, and let it steep for 10 minutes. Sweeten with honey. Dr. Weber has a savings account.