Does anyone know of a not peppermint flavored zinc acetate lozenge? I really dislike peppermint, so I’m not sure it would be worth it to drink 5 peppermint flavored glasses of water a day to decrease the duration of cold with one day, and I haven’t found other zinc acetate lozenge options yet, the acetate version seems to be rare among zing supplement. (Why?)
According to a podcast that seemed like the host knew what he was talking about, you also need the lozenges to not contain any additional ingredients that might make them taste nice, like vitamin C. (If it tastes nice, the zinc isn’t binding in the right place. Bad taste doesn’t mean it’s working, but good taste means it’s not.) As of a few years ago, that brand of lozenge was apparently the only one on the market that would work. More info: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/un2fgBad4uqqwm9sH/is-this-info-on-zinc-lozenges-accurate
That’s why the peppermint zinc acetate lozenge from Life Extension is the recommended one. So your only other option might be somehow finding unflavored zinc lozenges, which might taste even worse? Not sure where that might be available
Note that the lozenges dissolve slowly, so (bad news) you’d have the taste around for a while but (good news) it’s really not a very strong peppermint flavor while it’s in your mouth, and in my experience it doesn’t really have much of the menthol-triggered cooling effect. My guess is that you would still find it unpleasant, but I think there’s a decent chance you won’t really mind. I don’t know of other zinc acetate brands, but I haven’t looked carefully; as of 2019 the claim on this podcast was that only Life Extension brand are any good.
Does anyone know of a not peppermint flavored zinc acetate lozenge? I really dislike peppermint, so I’m not sure it would be worth it to drink 5 peppermint flavored glasses of water a day to decrease the duration of cold with one day, and I haven’t found other zinc acetate lozenge options yet, the acetate version seems to be rare among zing supplement. (Why?)
Earlier discussion on LW on zinc lozenges effectiveness mentioned that other flavorings which make it taste nice actually prevent the zinc effect.
From this comment by philh (quite a chain of quotes haha):
That’s why the peppermint zinc acetate lozenge from Life Extension is the recommended one. So your only other option might be somehow finding unflavored zinc lozenges, which might taste even worse? Not sure where that might be available
Note that the lozenges dissolve slowly, so (bad news) you’d have the taste around for a while but (good news) it’s really not a very strong peppermint flavor while it’s in your mouth, and in my experience it doesn’t really have much of the menthol-triggered cooling effect. My guess is that you would still find it unpleasant, but I think there’s a decent chance you won’t really mind. I don’t know of other zinc acetate brands, but I haven’t looked carefully; as of 2019 the claim on this podcast was that only Life Extension brand are any good.