Mothers (and Grandmothers) everywhere rejoice – you’ve been proven right yet again. It turns out that enjoying a warm drink to stop a cold (or the flu) in it’s tracks has finally been validated by scientific proof.
Researchers at Cardiff University’s Common Cold Centre, the world’s only facility focused on researching and testing new treatments for cold and flu, have just published the results of the first-of-its-kind study on warm drinks and colds in the latest issue of the journal Rhinology.
“It is surprising that this is the first scientific research on the benefit of a hot drink for treating cold and flu symptoms,” confirms centre director Professor Ron Eccles.
Much of what we know about the common cold, and the more serious and lasting flu come from twenty years of work by the team at the Common Cold Centre.
Scientists now recognizes that colds are brought on by as many as 200 different viruses, and the means they use to invade our bodies.
But while we understand more, we’re still no closer to a cure – finding or developing one medication to vanquish all those different viruses is next to impossible.
Although more common in the colder months, summer colds; colds while on vacation or after traveling by air have often become complaints for many of us.
Without a cure in sight, ways to treat cold symptoms are the focus of much attention.
The time honored remedy of a hot drink studied in this latest work was an apple and blackcurrant combination served at both room temperature and heated to 70