Honey is well known as a potent cough reliever. A 2007 study showed that honey helps relieve cough and trouble sleeping. A single dose of buckwheat honey was just as effective as a single dose of dextromethorphan in relieving nocturnal cough.
Recently, an Iranian study was published showing that coffee with honey helps treat cough. The researchers found that a combination of honey and coffee was superior to steroids when treating post-infectious cough (PPC).
PPC is a type of prolonged cough or upper respiratory infection that can last anywhere from 3 weeks to months. Treatments for this condition usually include medications, including codeine, narcotics, and more.
The research team from Baqiyatallah University Hospital in Iran divided study participants who were experiencing PPC into 3 groups:
• Group 1: Was given a mixture of coffee and honey
• Group 2: Was treated with steroids
• Group 3: Was treated with an expectorant as the control group
The researchers wrote: “The participants were told to dissolve a specified amount of their product in warm water and to drink the solution every eight hours for one week. All the participants were evaluated before treatment and one week after completion of treatment to measure the severity of their cough. The main outcome measure was the mean cough frequency before and after one week’s treatment calculated by a validated visual analogue cough questionnaire score.”
The results showed a significant decrease in cough frequency in the coffee and honey group, when compared to the others groups.
The researchers concluded: “Each year, billions of dollars are spent on controlling and trying to cure cough while the real effect of cough medicines is not quite reliable. Even though PPC is reported to account for only 11–25% of all cases of chronic cough and it is not associated with disability and mortality, it can cause morbidity and is responsible for medical costs…Honey and coffee are natural edible substances that are safe, agreeable, less expensive than medicines, and easily available. Moreover, they have proved to be effective in a short period of time.”
Because honey and coffee are effective and safe when compared to steroids, it may be considered a treatment option for PPC if these results are confirmed by more research.
This study showing that coffee with honey treats helps treat cough was published in the Primary Care Respiratory Journal.
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Some information included in this article is courtesy of Sayer Ji, Founder of GreedMedInfo.com. Greenmedinfo is the world’s most widely referenced natural health resource.
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REFERENCES:
1. “Honey Plus Coffee Beats Steroid For Treating Cough.” GreenMedInfo.com. GreenMedInfo.com, 22 Oct. 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.
2. “Honey plus Coffee versus Systemic Steroid in the Treatment of Persistent Post-infectious Cough: A Randomised Controlled Trial.” Primary Care Respiratory Journal. Primary Care Respiratory Journal, 3 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.
3. “Effect of Honey, Dextromethorphan, and No Treatment on Nocturnal Cough and Sleep Quality for Coughing Children and Their Parents.” JAMA Pediatrics. American Medical Association, Dec. 2007. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.
