Chocolate: The best home remedy for cough!
Home remedies for cough there are a lot. But after this one, even enchanted nanny Mary Poppins would be crazy: A small study of 163 subjects has revealed that cocoa-based medicines can better relieve coughing in a short time compared to regular medication. Accordingly, the annoying coughing of the participants already reduced within two days. And by comparison, the patients with the cocoa medicine were able to stop treatment prematurely because their coughing had subsided.
Who needs thyme if he can have chocolate?
Professor Alyn Moore, working at the English University of Hull in Yorkshire, seems to be surprised by the results. "I know that sounds like Mary Poppins, but as an independent scientist who has been researching the mechanisms of cough for years, I can confirm that the results are solid," Moore told Daily Mail. The expert recommends slowly sucking a piece of chocolate with a high cocoa content, to relieve discomfort. The study results Moore wants to publish in the next twelve months in a specialist magazine.
However, this is not the first study that shows that chocolate can help with a cough. London researchers had previously discovered that the so-called alkaloid theobromine in cocoa can suppress coughing. Better than codeine, the drug often used in cough medicine.
Main thing sticky?
As a cause, the scientists suspect that chocolate is stickier and more viscous than cough medications. This should be in the throat form a kind of coating over the nerve endings that otherwise trigger the coughing sensation. This assumption is supported by the fact that honey and syrup have a similar consistency and can also help with coughing. but not as effective as chocolate, as Moore points out.