Night-time coughing: Honey is the best remedy

29 February 2008

Honey is about the best remedy to give your child if he or she is unable to sleep because of coughing fits. It outperforms cough remedies, and it’s certainly better than doing nothing.

Even a single dose given 30 minutes before bedtime can reduce the cough, researchers have found.

They tested several approaches on a group of 105 children who had suffered from a persistent cough caused by an upper respiratory tract infection. On the first evening they did nothing, on the second they gave the children one dose of buckwheat honey and, on the third, an over-the-counter cough remedy that contained honey.

Honey on its own outperformed the other two approaches, and in most cases gave the child – and the parents – a good night’s sleep.

(Source: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 2007; 161: 1140-6).

Night-time coughing: Honey is the best remedy

Related WDDTY Content

The common cold

Cough Remedy: It’s a killer when wrongly prescribed

Cough Remedies: Don’t give them to the under-2s

Cough Remedies: They’re more dangerous than you might think

A spoonful of honey for h pylori

Honey: It’s such a good wound-healer that surgeons are urged to use it