Honey Better Than Cough Medicine For Soothing Kids’ Cough Symptoms
(NaturalNews) Honey is a more effective cough remedy for children than many over-the-counter medications, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the Penn State College of Medicine and published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
“Honey provided the greatest relief of symptoms compared with the other treatments,” lead researcher Ian Paul said.
Researchers studied 105 children between the ages of two and 18 who were having trouble sleeping due to cough. The participants were given either a small dose of buckwheat honey, honey-flavored dextromethorphan or no treatment at all a half-hour before bed.
|
Dextromethorphan is the primary cough-suppressant in most over-the-counter cough and cold medications.
Children who were given the honey had less frequent and severe nighttime coughing than either the children given dextromethorphan or those given no treatment at all. Honey appeared to induce a brief period of hyperactivity in the children, but even so both children and parents slept better after children were given honey compared with dextromethorphan or no treatment.
Honey has a long history of use as a treatment for upper respiratory symptoms, and research suggests that it also contains antioxidant and antifungal properties.
“The World Health Organization has cited honey as a potential therapy,” Paul said.
In contrast, the FDA recently advised against the use of over-the-counter cough and cold medications in children under the age of six, saying that such medications may cause dangerous side effects and have not been proven effective in that age group.
“With honey, parents now have a safe and effective alternative to use for children over age one who have cough and cold symptoms,” Paul said.
Paul warned that children under the age of one should not be given honey, as it may induce infant botulism in rare cases. He also noted that the experiment used dark honey, and it is not known if different varieties of honey would have the same effect.
As a dad and a doctor, I find this a very scary topic. I used to think that as long as my patient’s or I dosed the children’s cold & cough medications right, then everything would be OK. But when I researched this further, it turns out that children have died from “over dose” of ALL THE MAJOR CHILDRENS COLD AND COUGH MEDICINES even when given the correct dose (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/108/3/e52?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=cough+medications&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT).
Here are a few interesting facts:
1. Last October 2008, the drug companies promised the FDA that they would change all their labeling to say “do not use” for children under the age of 2, but I was just in the store last week, and a number of packages still had the old labeling!
2. The FDA reviewed safety and effectiveness data this last fall and its expert panel said that “right now the current cold & cough medications should not be given to children under 6.” Here is a link to the FDA’s minutes, “http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/07/minutes/2007-4323m1-Final.pdf”, see page 6. The FDA made a public advisory in January 2008 about never using it for children under 2, because the Drug companies are fighting them on the panels ruling to never use cold and cough medications on children 2 to 6. Since these drugs were previously allowed by the FDA, the FDA is forced to go though “due process” before they are willing to make an official public statement about never giving these medications to children 2 to 6.
3. The number of infant deaths attributed to cold and cough medicines is dramatically underreported. New research published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics demonstrated that there were at least “10 unexpected infant deaths that were associated with cold-medication” in 2006 alone in the state of Arizona. Extrapolated over the US and Canadian population, that would be over 500 deaths a year associated with cold-medication! (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/122/2/e318)
The thing that the drug companies don’t want anyone to know is that these medications never underwent the rigorous safety and effectiveness studies modern medications have to go though, they we grandfathered in the early 1970’s because at that time experts felt like they seemed to work, and they seemed safe enough.
Interestingly, some researchers from Penn State have shown that Buckwheat honey is better then the OTC drugs for children’s cough. There is a web site that talks about this, and gives lots of research to help parents be better informed about how to help their kids. Check out http://www.honeydontcough.com/
-Daddydoctor