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During the dreaded days of cold and flu season, you may be washing your hands constantly to try to stay healthy or reaching for the tissue box from under your coziest blanket when you fall ill.

Every year, between 5 percent and 20 percent of Americans get the flu and we suffer more than 1 billion colds. That has us looking for relief, with some people trying natural products like herbs and vitamins to help prevent or treat the common cold or the flu.

More than 30 percent of adults and 12 percent of children use health care approaches that fall outside of conventional Western medicine, like herbs and probiotics and yoga and meditation, according to the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Those figures rise when the use of vitamins and minerals is included.

“Especially for cold and flu season, there’s a lot of things people are using, natural products-wise, to help during the season,” Craig Hopp, the center’s acting branch chief of basic and mechanistic research, told weather.com.

But are they effective? Not definitively, he says.

“Do not rely on natural products or supplements to treat or prevent colds or flus,” Hopp said. “There is minor evidence to suggest benefit for some of these approaches, but the evidence is not always the strongest.”

But, he noted that people may associate these products with feeling better and cautioned that while they likely won’t cause harm, there is likely not strong science to suggest they work.

“If you feel it’s worth trying, we don’t discourage anyone from doing that,” said Hopp, an expert in the medicinal properties of natural products, “as long as they are making an informed decision.” Consult your doctor before using supplements, he said.

Read on for a look at the several natural products and their efficacy against the flu and common cold as highlighted by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

Natural Flu Remedies

There is no natural product that’s been shown to be helpful in either preventing or treating the influenza virus, the center says. “Vaccination is your best route,” Hopp said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that most everyone get an annual flu shot.

Certain complementary approaches to the flu, including American ginseng, echinacea, vitamins C and D and elderberry have been studied, but there is not enough evidence to say whether they work, the center says.

Zinc

Taking an oral form of this mineral like a tablet or lozenge may reduce the duration of colds when taken within 24 hours of the first symptoms, the center says.

“Zinc has the strongest evidence among natural products that have been tested to support its ability to reduce the duration of cold symptoms,” Hopp said.

“As soon as you feel the symptoms of a cold coming on, taking zinc does seem to provide some relief of the duration of the cold,” he said. “If you wait until you have a full-blown cold, we don’t have evidence to suggest zinc would help.”

Zinc that’s used in the nose is not recommended because it has been linked to an irreversible loss of the ability to smell, the center says.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C does not prevent colds and slightly reduces their duration and severity for the general population, the center says. But, it notes that in studies of people taking the vitamin after getting a cold, it did not improve their symptoms, meaning you would need to be taking it before getting sick.

“For those who are taking vitamin C as a prophylactic, it doesn’t seem to prevent colds but does seem to shorten the duration of a cold if you are on a regimen that includes vitamin C,” Hopp said.

An exception is for people under short periods of extreme physical stress like running a marathon, the center says, noting that research found that vitamin C cut the number of colds they got by half.

“Vitamin C apparently does reduce colds dramatically in those folks, I think because those people are perhaps more susceptible to getting these types of infections,” Hopp says.

“Taking vitamin C does seem to have a good benefit,” he said, noting though that “this is a small slice of the population, who are marathon runners.”

Echinacea

The center says this herbal supplement has not been proven to help prevent or treat colds.

Echinacea can be hard to study because the products vary widely, with some using the root or the above-ground-part of the herb, Hopp said. “The sum of that data suggests there doesn’t seem to be much benefit,” he said.

“There’s no conclusive evidence that the products are effective for the treatment or prevention of colds,” Hopp said. “However the research is not consistent in this regard -- some products, in some species, seem to provide benefit, where other studies show no benefit.”

Probiotics

Probiotics are microorganisms, a kind of so-called good bacteria associated with improved health. They can be found as dietary supplements and in yogurts.

The center found weak evidence to support that taking probiotics supplements may help prevent colds. The 2015 look at 13 studies found some evidence showing that probiotics might cut down on the number of colds people catch and shorten the duration but called the quality of the research low or very low.

“There might be a small benefit for colds and other infections but the quality of that evidence was not the best,” Hopp said. “We can’t recommend it as a treatment option.”

Garlic

The center cites a 2014 look at research, which found there was not enough evidence to show whether the herb helps ward off colds or provide symptom relief.

Honey

Honey may help cut down on coughing during the night in children, the center says, citing a small amount of research. It is deemed safe for children ages 1 and up.