RP274 My Mother Says

 RP274 My Mother Says...

“How did people get along centuries ago, before penicillin, shining hospitals and high-tech treatments and medicines with kid-friendly flavors?” you might wonder. We' ve certainly made great progress in health, but something odd is happening. Our new discoveries often look just like traditional wisdom. Should we have been listening to folk wisdom all along?

When I got a sore throat as a child, my mother made me gargle with warm salt water. Her mother made her do this, and her mother's mother did, too— because it works! Here's why: the salt in the water has a drying effect. Usually, when you have a sore throat, the back of your throat becomes inflamed with dots filled with water and bacteria. The salt sticks to the back of your throat, drying out the inflammation and killing the bacteria. No more sore throat, and no doctor's visit either!

Chicken soup is a cold remedy that's nearly 1,000 years old. Typical ingredients are chicken, garlic, noodles, carrots, salt, pepper, and water. We know that salt water can help dry out bacteria so that would help. Garlic has been proven to kill bacteria, and viruses. Steam from the soup helps loosen mucus in the chest. Chicken contains zinc, which recent studies show can stop viruses from replicating. Maybe chicken soup is the best thing for a cold.

They say 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away.' Apples may indeed be special. A new study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that eating an apple about every day for a year lowered bad cholesterol and raised good cholesterol. This didn't happen with a control group who ate other fruits. The women in the study even lost weight, despite eating extra calories!

Like medicines, folk remedies aren't all alike and don't all work. But just because something isn't high-tech doesn't mean it isn't effective. After all, traditions don't usually last thousands of years without some truth behind them!