No evidence cough syrups work: panel

[struggle4progress]

Mon Jan 9, 2006 10:04 PM GMT

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Over-the-counter cough medicines do little good and may harm children, U.S. experts said in new guidelines released on Monday.

Adults are better off using older nonprescription antihistamines and decongestants to stop the flow of mucus that causes the cough, the American College of Chest Physicians said in its guidelines.

"Cough is the number one reason why patients seek medical attention," Dr. Richard Irwin of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, who chaired the guidelines panel, said in a statement.

"There is no clinical evidence that over-the-counter cough expectorants or suppressants actually relieve cough," Irwin added.

"There is considerable evidence that older type antihistamines help to reduce cough, so, unless there are contraindications to using these medicines, why not take something that has been proven to work?" <snip>

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-01-09T220348Z_01_KWA979346_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-COUGH-DC.XML

[htuttle]

1. I find ephedrine+an expectorant helps coughs more than anything else

Unfortunately, they don't sell it at the drug store anymore due to meth fears -- you have to find it at gas stations being sold as cheap 'speed' (what else are those white crosses on the tablets supposed to simulate?). They call them 'Breathe Easy' tablets.

[WePurrsevere]

2. Decongestants are what is working for me with this nasty cold I have.

When I realized that it's the dripping from my head into my chest that was causing my coughing fits I started taking a 1/2 dose of Alka-Seltzer Plus for Colds and Sinus. Although it's not perfect, even with the lower dose it's been working better then any cough syrup I've ever taken at least for this drippy head stuff.

[philb]

3. All NSAIDS are known to have significant adverse effects and

likewise for most over the counter cold and pain meds(and Rx drugs for that matter).

There are much more effective alternatives that don't have adverse effects.
Immune boosters, essential oils(YLO Panaway for pain & peppermint for congestion & Thieves or Oregeno for oral health) vit/mins, good nutrition, glyconutrients, avoid toxic exposures, etc.

People in my family haven't gotten colds or flu in the last 10 years.

(but some in my family have had chronic conditions including being born with cancer,etc. from prenatal exposures & some who aren't as careful have had some conditions-
since recovering from many chronic disabilities 10 years ago from mercury toxicity I can't remember having had anything to see a doctor for except 1 time, when I mistakenly was talked into taking a fluoride based antibiotic for a cough as a preventative measure because I was about to visit people for XMAS)

too bad more people or people's doctors don't spend more time doing medline searches, and also too bad that not all peer-review
is very serious or rigorous, & too bad Gov't orgs like FDA are controlled by Pharms so don't do whats in the public interest.

[Orrex]

4. That's quite a claim

People in my family haven't gotten colds or flu in the last 10 years.

Any documentation of that assertion? Any verifiable link between this alleged superimmunity and so-called "non-traditional" so-called "treatments?"

[RedOnce]

8. Wow! Do you have any idea how you were exposed to mercury?

[Orrex]

5. On the other hand

There's no evidence that "homeopathic" "remedies" work, either, and yet they're a part of a huge and hugely profitable industry.

[RedOnce]

7. Bizarre chemical discovery gives homeopathic hint

I am not arguing that this constitutes "evidence that homeopathic remedies work" but, I thought that you might be interested in this:

From: NewScientist.Com 07 November 2001 http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1532 (edited here for brevity)

It is a chance discovery so unexpected it defies belief and threatens to reignite debate about whether there is a scientific basis for thinking homeopathic medicines really work.

What happens when you dissolve a substance in water? Conventional wisdom says that the dissolved molecules simply spread further and further apart as a solution is diluted. But two chemists have found that some do the opposite: they clump together, first as clusters of molecules, then as bigger aggregates of those clusters. Far from drifting apart from their neighbours, they got closer together. The discovery has stunned chemists, and could provide the first scientific insight into how some homeopathic remedies work.

They found that the football-shaped buckyball molecules kept forming untidy aggregates in solution, and Geckler asked Samal to look for ways to control how these clumps formed. What he discovered was a phenomenon new to chemistry. "When he diluted the solution, the size of the fullerene particles increased," says Geckeler. "It was completely counterintuitive," he says. Dilution typically made the molecules cluster into aggregates five to 10 times as big as those in the original solutions. The growth was not linear, and it depended on the concentration of the original. "The history of the solution is important. The more dilute it starts, the larger the aggregates," says Geckeler. Also, it only worked in polar solvents like water, in which one end of the molecule has a pronounced positive charge while the other end is negative.

The finding may provide a mechanism for how some homeopathic medicines work - something that has defied scientific explanation till now. Diluting a remedy may increase the size of the particles to the point when they become biologically active.

[trotsky]

10. Even if this effect is real...

it is nothing like the mechanism by which homeopaths claim their snake oil works.

For the rational side of the story:
http://www.homeowatch.org/research/molecules.html

The article to which this referred was published in Chemical Communications, the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Since the article does not mention homeopathy, I asked one of its authors (Kurt E. Geckeler, M.D., Ph.D.) whether the study implied anything about it. He replied:

As you stated correctly, the word homeopathy is not mentioned in the original paper and the study itself has nothing to do with it. It only states that on dilution (up to mM conc.) of a number of substances in water, an increase of particle size was observed. It was a laboratory study -- everything beyond that is speculation at this point. What journalists make out of our publication is beyond our control. Nevertheless, if confirmed, it might have implications in many different areas.

Homeopathic products are prepared by repeatedly diluting the original substance so that the each dilution is 1/10th or 1/100th as concentrated as the previous one. The clumping of molecules simply means that instead of each dilution taking a random sample of the molecules in a solution, it might take more-- or less -- than would be expected with an even distribution. (In other words, if molecules of a substance clumps in one place, there will be fewer molecules in other places.) With repeated dilution, the ultimate number of "active ingredient" molecules would approach zero whether clumping occurs or not. Clumping would not increase the number of molecules as the "active ingredient" is repeatedly diluted, so the remedy cannot grow stronger as the solution becomes more dilute. Nor does Dr. Geckeler's experiment support homeopathy's absurd notion that water can "remember" molecules that are no longer there.

[RedOnce]

11. Thanks for the update!

[demosincebirth]

6. I have never found a cold or cought medicine that made

me feel any better. I just take Zinc and it really shortens the length of a cold.

[Ciggies and coffee]

9. I wonder about this one-size-fits-all reasoning

I would think that each person reacts differently to a drug, and the only way to find out is to try.. Today they say something is not effective, tomorrow they try to ban it.