Airborne Effervescent Health Formula Dietary Supplement Tablets, Adult Formula
Written: Apr 02 '05 (Updated Apr 02 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: May help fight off a cold, vitamins
Cons: Price, can't prove if it works
The Bottom Line: I think it is worth a try but I will also say that this is no miracle worker.
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| some_guy5's Full Review: Airborne Effervescent Health Formula Dietary Suppl... |
Airborne formula is a vitamin and herbal supplement designed to fight off colds. One of the first things you will notice is that they advertise prominently that it was developed by a school teacher, and who better to be inventing medicine? I received this in my Christmas stocking. I expected it not to work. After three trials I have shifted my bias to maybe it does work. The problem is, you can't prove it one way or the other. If you fight off a cold, how do you know you wouldn't have fought it off anyway? If you get a cold, how do you know it wouldn't have been worse, or that it wouldn't have lasted longer?
Use and Ingredients
To use Airborne you simply dissolve a tablet in a small amount of water and drink it. I use a juice glass. Dissolving a tablet takes about a minute. It doesn't taste that bad, not compared to most medicine, but it is no treat either (does anyone else remember how those Flintstones vitamins tasted like candy? The good old days). OK. A ten tablet bottle is probably going to run you over $5. That brings me to their recommended use of this product. They want you to take it at the very first sign of a cold. I am very much on board with that and I think it makes perfect sense. Then they want you tot take it every three hours after that. This is starting to add up, but if you are sure it works..... Airborne also suggests that you could use it on airplanes, restaurants, offices, hospitals, schools (are you kidding me? do you mean 5 days per week?), health clubs, carpools, theaters, and arenas. I get the idea. If you are going to be in a confined space and forced to breath germs you may take this as a preventative measure. At over 50 cents per tablet I think I will be a little less liberal with my airborne use. On the other hand, if you have something coming up that you just can't afford to be sick for, maybe it is worth $10 to overload on Airborne and keep yourself healthy.
So if it can really fight off a cold where all before it have failed then perhaps you will want to know what miracle ingredients are in it. I will go into more detail but the first thing that jumps out is 1,000mg of vitamin C. That is over 1,600% of your recommended daily allowance. Draw your own conclusion from that but you don't have to spend this kind of money to load up on vitamin C.
The ingredients and dietary information (from the Airborne website) are as follows.
Serv size 1 tablet. Servings, 10. Amount per serving: Calories 4, Total Fat 0g, Sodium 230mg (10% DV*), Total Carb 0g, Sugars 0g, Protein 0g. Vitamin A (100% Acetate) 5,000 I.U. (100% DV*), Vitamin C 1,000mg (1,633% DV*), Vitamin E 30 I.U. (100% DV*), Magnesium (Sulfate) 40mg (10% DV*), Zinc (Sulfate) 8mg (55% DV*), Selenium (Sodium Selinite) 15mcg (21% DV*), Manganese (Gluconate) 3mg (86% DV*), Potassium (Bicarbonate) 75mg (2.5% DV*), Organic Herbal Extracts (Lonicera, Forsythia, Schizonepeta, Ginger, Chinese Vitex, Isatis Root, Echinacea) 350mg (DV**), Amino Acids (Glutamine, Lysine) 50mg (DV**).
Other Ingredients: Citric Acid, Sodium Bicarbonate, Sorbitol, Potassium Bicarbonate, Orange Flavor, Mineral Oil, Sucralose, Acesulfame Potassium.
My Experience
I have used Airborne on three separate occasions. The first, I was feeling run down one evening and was afraid I might be getting sick. I dissolved an Airborne tablet and drank it right away. I went to bed that night and woke up feeling fine. That makes one successful trial, but we don't actually know of I was getting sick or not. The next time I felt the need to take airborne something was going around my office and my normally very healthy wife was sick as well. For some background on me, I always get whatever is going around and I get it bad. I take almost all of my sick days (but only one so far this year) and often go to work sick just because I am sick so often. So my wife is sick and I start taking Airborne. This time I did get sick but I was very surprised to find that I did not get as sick as my wife had and my sickness did not last as long. After this incident I am starting to become a believer. It is a rare occasion indeed for my wife to be more sick than I. On the third occasion, I woke up with an awful sore throat and achy sinuses. I started taking Airborne but I have been sick for 4 days running now. So maybe I took it too late? It did nothing for me that I can tell with this latest cold. Airborne doesn't claim to cure colds, and I didn't take it until I already felt awful.
Conclusion
I have been convinced to the point where I am willing to keep trying it. I just bought my second bottle. I fully expected this product to be a hoax and now I am not so sure. I can't prove anything and I doubt anyone really can. Even people with all positive outcomes could simply be feeling the effects of a better attitude due to placebo. At the very worst you are getting a yucky tasting hyper dose of vitamin C. At best, you are avoiding or lessening the severity of colds. Based on the ingredients, I would say the markup on this product is obscene. However, it is worth quite a bit to not get sick, or at least not as sick. I can't give it a full recommendation but I think if $5 to $7 doesn't represent a huge investment to you then it is worth a try.
Recommended:
Yes
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some_guy5
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