James Randerson, science correspondent
The Guardian, Tuesday 4 December 2007
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Thursday January 10 2008
In the item below we said that a study compared buckwheat
honey with dextromethorphan, a common ingredient in children's over-the-counter medicine in the US, and found that honey was more effective at relieving the severity, frequency and bothersome nature of the cough and that dextromethorphan was slightly more effective than a placebo. In fact the study, which was funded by the US National Honey Board, concluded that while honey was the most effective treatment for all outcomes related to cough, child sleep and parent sleep, direct comparison between honey and dextromethorphan did not yield statistically significant differences.
A clinical trial has found that honey is more effective at soothing a sore throat than a common active ingredient in children's cough medicines.
Honey has been used for centuries to relieve a tickly throat and scientists now believe it may be effective because it has constituents that kill microbes and acts as an antioxidant. That means it might prevent damage inside cells from chemical byproducts of their activity.
The study compared buckwheat honey with dextromethorphan, an ingredient in a range of branded medicines. Dextromethorphan is the most common active ingredient in children's over-the-counter cough medicine in the US, although it is less common in remedies aimed at children in the UK. The team enrolled 105 children with a night cough and their parents and split them into three groups. One group received a syringe-full of honey, one a syringe containing the medicine, and the third received an empty syringe.
The team from Pennsylvania State University report today in the Archives of Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine that honey was more effective than dextromethorphan at relieving the severity, frequency and bothersome nature of the cough. The medicine was slightly more effective than no treatment at all.
Sheila Kelly, of the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, said: "Having access to safe and effective paediatric cough and cold remedies is essential. Those on the UK market have demonstrated their efficacy through decades of use and their acceptance by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency means parents can continue to rely on these over- the-counter cough and cold remedies."
