Who hasn't attempted curing a nagging, persistent cough with one of those over-the-counter cough syrups? Chances are, they didn't help. Coughing is a medical condition that affects most people at some point in time; yet, an effective treatment to suppress it does not exist. However, researchers may have discovered a natural, tasty remedy to coughing: Chocolate. Specifically, a derivative in cocoa, theobromine, was found to be nearly a third more effective than codeine -- currently known as the "best cough medicine."
Theobromine is effective because it suppresses vagus nerve (cranial nerve) activity, which is responsible for coughing. Because persistent coughing can have a serious impact on one's overall quality of life, researchers were motivated to discover a remedy that actually suppressed it.
To do so, they examined the effect of theobromine, in a study involving 10 healthy volunteers. Each volunteer was given theobromine, a placebo or codeine at different times during the study. To determine the effectiveness of each treatment, researchers measured the levels of capsaicin (a compound used to induce coughing) in each volunteer and compared them after each treatment.
Putting Chocolate to the Test
- The amount of capsaicin needed to develop a cough was a third higher with the theobromine treatment than it was with a placebo
- Theobromine did not produce any adverse side effects on either the cardiovascular or central nervous systems
- Drowsiness did not occur when taking theobromine
EurekAlert November 22, 2004
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