If you have developed a cough that you’re struggling with or is keeping you up at night, don’t be tempted to buy special medicine to calm it down.
Pharmacists sell two kinds basically.
Cough suppressants loosen mucus and are intended to make coughing easier.
If a dry, irritating cough develops towards the end of a cold, cough suppressants are supposed to provide relief.
The other kind of medicine is expectorants – medication to thin and loosen mucus in the airways, which aims to make the mucus easier to cough up and clear from the throat and lungs.
But testers in Germany question how effective the remedies are, whether herbal or synthetic.
German consumer organisation Stiftung Warentest examined studies on the effectiveness of 27 cough medicines and came to a sobering conclusion.
“Shoppers can usually save their money on cough medicines,” write the testers.
This applies above all to cough suppressants.
Both the herbal and synthetic variants failed the test.
Their effectiveness has not been sufficiently proven, and some of the active ingredients also carry risks.
Dextromethorphan, for example, is an active ingredient that can be addictive and cause hallucinations, albeit rarely.
The situation is somewhat better for cough expectorants.
The product testers rated the majority of them as “suitable with reservations”.
Although their effectiveness has been proven, it is only moderate, and there is still room for improvement in terms of evidence of the products’ effectiveness.
If you are suffering from a cough and don’t have any cough medicine at home, you don’t have to go to the pharmacy.
Just reach for the honey jar.
Honey – whether pure or stirred into warm tea or warm milk – can be soothing for coughs.
Here, too, the study results are not conclusive, say the product testers, “but comparable to the cough medicines with limited effectiveness in the test”.
You may also need some rest and patience.
After all, it is normal for a cough to linger for three or four weeks after a cold, says German general practitioner (GP) Dr Sabine Gehrcke-Beck.
Her advice is to keep your throat moist.
This helps the body fight the cough itself.
You can manage this with hot drinks, sugar-free lozenges, and by inhaling steam. – dpa
