User Experience of ColdZyme Mouth Spray against Common Cold in Competitive Athletes

Abstract

ColdZyme® Mouth Spray (ColdZyme) is intended to reduce the probability of catching a cold and/or can help shorten the duration of a cold, if used at an early stage of the infection, by forming a barrier on the pharyngeal mucous membrane. The user experience of ColdZyme on naturally occurring common cold infections was evaluated in competitive athletes training professionally or on an amateur level. Thirteen athletes completed weekly electronic surveys on occurrence of common colds, cold severity and user experience over the course of 3 months. The 13 participants reported in total 15 cold incidents with an average duration of 7.4 days. The average cold severity was 31.2 on a visual-analogue scale (VAS) ranging from 0 (mildest possible cold) to 100 (worst possible cold). The overall user satisfaction with ColdZyme was high. 81% of the reported colds were experienced to be milder and/or shorter than usual. None of the participants reported “No effect”. Out of the participants who reported absence of a cold in the previous week, 69% reported a positive answer to the question if ColdZyme had prevented them from catching a cold in the previous week. Conclusion: The present study evaluated prevention and alleviation of naturally occurring common cold in athletes, and demonstrated that ColdZyme may be an easy and practical way for competitive athletes to prevent or reduce infections of the common cold virus and corresponding unwanted absence from training and competition. Due to the lack of a comparator group, a placebo effect cannot be excluded.