Honey seems to be a preference for cough or cold symptoms instead of antibiotics and over-the-counter medications, according to a new systematic review that looked at the results of 14 previous studies – but the conclusions may not be as clear-cut. when they first appear.
“Honey is a commonly used medicine that is well known to patients,” write researchers from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “It’s also cheap, easily accessible and has limited damage.”
One particular area of interest is the comparison of honey with antibiotics. With antibiotics often causing side effects and antibiotic resistance emerging, there are several benefits to using honey as an alternative remedy, the authors of the review point out.
“Since the majority of upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) are viral, antibiotic prescribing is both ineffective and inappropriate,” the researchers write. “A lack of effective alternatives, such as a desire to maintain the patient-physician relationship, both contribute to excessive anti-antibiotics.”
People have used honey to help treat coughs and colds for a long, long time – but research into its effectiveness has been rather misleading, leaving room for doubt as to how much it actually reduces cold symptoms in different age groups, compared to other options .
The team’s review is based on 1,761 individuals in 14 studies and concluded that honey is effective in treating the symptoms of URTIs – including sore throats, block noses, coughs and general congestion. Although the conclusion seems promising, the studies included appear to be emblematic of the problems posed by such research.
“Meta-analytics is all about the recorded studies. If the literature you trust is poor, you can not really say much about the subject unless you need more research,” says Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, which was not involved in the research.
“In this review, most of the research included seems to have been concerned about inconsistencies and some direct errors, which means we have to be really careful not to read too much into the results.”
As anyone who has had a cold experience will know, existing treatments and therapies often make little difference in the overall course of the disease; honey can feel it when it does eat – and the researchers say it’s worth following up with large, high-quality, placebo-controlled threads.
“The meta-analysis itself was done well, but the quality of the studies on honey for URTI / cough just seems to be low. That means we can only really say that we are still not sure if honey helps, because we did not answer the question correctly, “Meyerowitz-Katz told ScienceAlert.
In the meantime, it is being worked on to see how beneficial honey can be in terms of its antibacterial properties, and how it can be useful for treating other ailments besides coughing and colds. Sometimes the best treatments are those that nature has already provided for us – but more research is absolutely needed.
The study was published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.
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