Do hot teas and chicken soup really help cure a cold?

Reuters

Published on Jan. 26, 2023, 6:17 PM

Fighting your cold with a hot tea? While they might feel nice and offer you some needed hydration, they won't offer much more health benefits than that, experts say.

(dpa) - You're coming down with a cold. Time for some chicken soup. Because if your grandmother said it helps, then it must be true.

Many swear by a bowl of broth and some herbal tea when they get the sniffles. But how much can hot liquid really do to help cure a cold? The answer: it's complicated.

Despite popular belief, there are no studies that show chicken noodle soup really helps when you have a cold, according to the non-profit health information organization Stiftung Gesundheitswissen.

Lab tests have indicated there may be a possible anti-inflammatory effect, but these are not enough to make a scientific judgement. What's more, there is no one chicken soup; every recipe is different.

But then again, chicken soup has two definite advantages for anyone with a cold: firstly, it's hot, which improves the flow of both mucous and blood circulation, thus making you feel a bit better.

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Secondly, a good soup with lots of vegetables will provide you with crucial nutrients and plenty of energy. This can help you to get you back on your feet that little bit faster, the experts say. Beyond that though, there's little magic at work in a simple chicken soup.

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The same goes for herbal teas, on the other hand. While they might feel nice and offer you some needed hydration, they won't offer much more health benefits than that, experts say.

REUTERS/dpa/Daniel Modjesch: Fighting your cold with a hot tea? While they might feel nice and offer you some needed hydration, they won't offer much more health benefits than that, experts say.

Fighting your cold with a hot tea? While they might feel nice and offer you some needed hydration, they won't offer much more health benefits than that, experts say. (REUTERS/dpa/Daniel Modjesch)

There are herbal medicines that do have a clear health effect, but these require specific extracts in a certain quantity and concentration, something that can hardly be guaranteed from the average bag of tea.

In a test by German consumer magazine Oeko Test, testers found pesticides, mosquito repellant and other undesirable substances in several of the 18 cough and bronchial teas they tested. Meanwhile even the teas without harmful substances could not be shown to have a proven health benefit.

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(Reporting by: Tobias Hanraths in Berlin. Editing by: Coman Hamilton)