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Grandma Beats Science

By Anonymous

I couldn't sleep last night. Like Landon, when I'm overtired, I have a very hard time falling asleep, and I'm so far beyond overtired, I'm overexhausted. The benefit of all the tossing and turning is that I wrote about 6 blog posts in my head. I think some of them were even good- I just can't remember any of them now. Luckily two headlines caught my eye this morning and provided me with some quick blogging fodder:

The first is a Penn State study comparing the effectiveness of different cough remedies for kids ages 2-18. Pediatricians enrolled more than 100 children to compare the effects of no medication, honey, or dextromethorphan (DM)?an over the counter cough suppressant?on cough associated with a cold. The results: Among the three types of treatment, dextromethorphan and honey turned out to be better than nothing, but honey scored the best of all for cough suppression, children's sleep, and parents' sleep.

The second is the FDA's conclusion that over-the-counter cold remedies are not safe for children under the age of 2 and probably should not be given to children younger than 6 (they have yet to officially rule on that age group). According to their studies and scientists, there?s no evidence that the drugs ease cold symptoms in children so young, and they may even do no good at all. And while serious side effects are fairly rare, they do occur. As one scientists put: ?It?s one thing if you?re curing cancer, but we?re talking about a self-limiting illness... If there?s really no evidence of benefit, you don?t want to risk the rare problem. Then you?re left with tragedy that you can?t justify.?

So it turns out grandma's old-fashioned honey remedy is not only safer, it's more effective. (Note: you are not supposed to give honey to a baby younger than 1 because of the risk of infant botulism, so for kids younger than 1 the "treatment" is just fluids, sleep, and cuddling.) While I love modern medicine and have made frequent use of its gifts (ex: the epidural), I'm a big believer in old home remedies as well. As shown here, some of them are better and safer than what we've tried to recreate in a lab. I think that a nice combination of the two approaches is best. Any other good ones I should know about?

Full post as published by Lag Liv on January 17, 2008 (boomark / email).