A Spoonful of Honey?

by WiredBerries Editors — December 11, 2007

As cold and flu season begins to rear its ugly head, new research supports an old remedy to help with that cough. A new study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine revealed that honey can soothe sore throats and calm coughs. Honey has been used since the time of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to treat everything from wounds to insect bites, so the idea of using it to treat symptoms of the common cold isn't all that foreign.

The researchers enrolled 105 children, between ages 2 and 18, in their randomized, partially double-blind study. On the first night of the study, the children received no treatment. Parents then answered questions about their children's sleep and cough as well as the quality of their own sleep. The second night, the children were given either honey-flavored cough syrup or honey -- or nothing at all. Parents then reanswered the questions in the survey. Parents whose children received the honey rated their kids' sleep and symptoms as better -- and their own sleep as improved as well. So maybe my mom was right with all that talk about tea with honey lemon being a cure-all, who knew?