Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Honey as a Cough Medicine for Children

I ran across this story today, discussing the results of a study performed at Penn State.

Natural honey is a more effective remedy for children’s coughs than over-the-counter medicines, researchers say. A dose of buckwheat honey before bedtime easily outperformed a cough suppressant in a US study.

Honey did a better job of reducing the severity and frequency of night-time coughs. It also improved sleep quality for children and their parents.


I think we'll try this out, since my eldest has a cough, and it can't hurt.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't know why the specify buckwheat honey over, say, clover honey, other than perhaps buckwheat honey has a higher viscosity. My folks grow alfalfa on the farm, and the let a beekeeper keep his hives out there. As such, my folks get about 10 gallons of very, very good honey per year. Alfalfa honey is pretty good, and we learned early on that it was as good or better than robotussin. Another interesting honey fact is that is a food that will essentially keep forever. Once it sugars, it apparently won't go bad as evidenced by honey that was found in some Egyptian tomb. They reheated it and tried it (which I would not have volunteered for), and said it tasted perfectly fine.

Finally, if your a Viking, you can make mead out of it.