Science Agrees With Indian Moms: Honey Works Better than Medicines for Cough and Cold

Remember when as a kid you hated cold medicine, and often to deal with your tantrums, your mother or grandmother often just fed you honey instead?

There’s new research behind it showing how it may actually work In fact, it may work better than ordinary cold medicine.

Physicians from Oxford University’s Medical School and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences have found after research that honey was more effective in relieving the symptoms of cold and flu-like illnesses than the usual commercial remedies, and could provide a safer, cheaper and more readily available alternative to antibiotics.

Researchers analyzed existing evidence to determine how the symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) responded to it. URTIs are common cold-like illnesses that affect the nose, sinuses, pharynx or larynx.

“Honey was superior to usual care for the improvement of symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections," they write in the paper published in journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.

“It provides a widely available and cheap alternative to antibiotics. Honey could help efforts to slow the spread of antimicrobial resistance, but further high quality, placebo controlled trials are needed."

The results were compiled from the individual result of 14 studies, nine of which only involved children. Most compared honey with more conventional treatments like over-the-counter medicines.

But as this research became public, Indians had a more different reaction: We already been knew.

Someone on Twitter, also pointed out some gaps in the research. The paper which is up for peer-review fails to mention how the process was randomized.

Or if there was a control group.

But while the research is new, it adds science behind the belief we’ve been following for generations already: That honey works. It is if not better, certainly an alternative to antibiotics.