Some sweet news for kids with colds

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A spoonful of honey works better than cough medicine for kids, research shows.

By Josephine Marcotty, Star Tribune

Last update: December 03, 2007 – 9:26 PM
Note to Mary Poppins: Forget the medicine and go straight for the sweet stuff.

Just as over-the-counter cough and cold products have been declared off-limits for kids under age 6 by a federal advisory panel and parents are at a loss for soothing stuffy kids at bedtime, researchers offer an alternative: A spoonful of honey soothes coughs just as well or better than cough medicine.

A research study published today found that kids who got a dose of honey coughed less and slept somewhat better than those who got cough medicine with dextromethorphan (DM), the ingredient in most over-the-counter products that suppress the urge to cough.

Or, honey is almost as ineffective as cough medicine, depending on how you look at it.

Those cough medicines, which have been marketed to parents at a cost of about $50 million each year, have been shown to be of little benefit to kids anyway.

But Dr. Ian Paul, a pediatrician and the researcher who conducted the study on about 100 kids, said that at least now doctors have an answer for parents who want to do something for their kids who can't sleep.

"It's hard for us to say that there are no medicines that we can recommend," said Paul, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Pennsylvania State University in Hershey, Pa. "Now I'm happy ... that parents have something to try."

(Note to parents: Do not give honey to any child under the age of 1 year. Infants younger than that are at risk for botulism from honey, experts say.)

A widespread remedy

Paul said that honey has long been used in other countries to treat coughs and that it has a long history in the United States as a natural remedy for a stuffed head, sore throat and cough. A common remedy is honey with tea and lemon.

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