Cold Defence Nasal Sprays
Sliced Bread
BBC
4.6 • 695 Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two products dominate the market for nasal sprays that claim to reduce symptons of a cold - Vicks ‘First Defence’ and Boots ‘Dual Defence’. But do they work?
Listener Leah got in touch because she catches lots of colds from her young son and wants to know if they can help her get over them more quickly. She also wants to know if they’re safe to use regularly and how long you should take them for.
Presenter Greg Foot sniffs out the evidence and talks to a leading expert who’s dedicated most of his career to investigating cold remedies.
This series, we’re testing and investigating your suggested wonder-products. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or fad and wonder if there’s any evidence to back up a claim, drop us an email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a voice note to our new WhatsApp number: 07543 306807.
PRESENTER: Greg Foot PRODUCER: Simon Hoban
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, podcast fan. |
| 0:03.0 | Consider this your invite to the UK's biggest podcasting party. |
| 0:06.7 | We're heading to Sheffield from the 4th to the 6th of July |
| 0:09.0 | for the BBC Sounds Fringe at the Crossed Wires Festival. |
| 0:12.8 | We'll be joined by some of the biggest names in podcasting, |
| 0:15.3 | including Sarah Cox, Charlie Hedges, Russell Kane, |
| 0:18.4 | and some bloke called Greg James doing his Radio 4 show called Rewinder. |
| 0:23.2 | You can watch live shows of your favourite podcasts, and the best part is free. |
| 0:28.0 | To book your free tickets, go to crossedwires.org slash fringe. |
| 0:34.4 | BBC Sounds, music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:46.0 | Hello, I'm Greg Foote and welcome to the show that cuts through the advertising hype to find out whether the latest promising-sounding wonder products really deliver on their bold claims. |
| 0:52.6 | Are they the best things since sliced bread or marketing BS? |
| 0:56.9 | This week's suggestion comes in from Leah Roberts in Coventry. |
| 1:03.8 | Hello, Leah. Happy New Year to you too. How are you? Are you well? |
| 1:08.7 | I am well. I have not got a cold. Have you got a cold? I don't think so. |
| 1:13.6 | Although everyone I know did seem to have the lurgy over the holidays or be getting it now. So, |
| 1:18.6 | but this does bring us onto your topic. A few people have got in touch about this, |
| 1:22.6 | and it's something I've used and it's something I've wanted to know about. In fact, we touched on it in one of the first ever episodes of Slice Bread. So I'm really excited to do a deep dive. Tell me all. Okay, |
| 1:32.2 | so I would like to ask you about Vic's first defence nasal spray for either preventing a cold |
| 1:39.6 | or for trying to stop a cold in its tracks, as it says, help stock a cold in its tracks clinically |
| 1:46.0 | proven. So I'll be interested to know whether that's factually correct, clinically proven. |
| 1:51.5 | I saw that. And there's no little asterix or anything next to clinically proven on the box, |
... |
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