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Grex Health Item 95: Cough
Entered by keesan on Sun Feb 20 19:51:26 UTC 2011:

I have some virus that turned into a persistent cough.  Is this going around
and if so how long does it last?  Elderflower tea actually does stop the cough
for at least 10 minutes.

3 responses total.

#1 of 3 by keesan on Sun Feb 20 21:23:06 2011:

Elderflower tea, according to wikipedia, shortens the duration and intensity
of flu and helps with coughs, fever, bronchitis, sore throat.  The whole plant
is poisonous except flowers and ripe berries (not counting seeds) and contains
a cyanogen (turns into cyanide).  I think they said it helps make
non-productive coughs productive.   Licorice tea also helps coughs, but does
not grow around here.  Elderflowers grow by the boardwalk north of the Huron.
The wet flowers made another cup of dark purple tea just by a few dunks in
cold water.  Russian drugstores sell the tea and I heard of it when a Serbian
friend asked if I had any for her cough.  It worked instantly and for at least
30 minutes now.  No coughing at all.  After 6 days of coughing.  A trial
showed that the tea shortened flu duration from 6 to 2 days to maybe I was
getting over it anyway, but I took some last night and then started coughing
again after an hour or so, and again today, and after more tea today the
coughing suddenly stopped.

#2 of 3 by rcurl on Mon Feb 21 07:05:52 2011:

There was a recent report that a studies have shown a beneficial of zinc in
the diet to decrease the severity and duration of cold symptoms. The RDA has
not been established yet, however.

#3 of 3 by keesan on Mon Feb 21 17:23:20 2011:

Zinc is found in whole grains and other seeds (esp. pumpkin, which I eat a
lot of - the neighbors all give us theirs after halloween) and potatoes, which
we eat nearly every day (peeled after cooking) including beans.  
Non-vegetarians get plenty of zinc.  Vegetarians who eat white bread and
noodles probably do not.  I have been aiming at a high protein (albeit low
calorie) diet and enough liquids.  But refined starches - the only one I could
find here was rice starch.  

Elderflowers really do need to be soaked in hot water (one site said to boil
15 minutes) or nothing comes out of them.  Once boiled they can be reused a
few times by adding cold water.  I wonder if the boil 15 minutes inactivates
the cyanogens.  

This is rather an inconvenient week to have the flu so I have been out
shoveling anyway.  The main problem is lack of energy due to not eating so
I stop and lean on the shovel for a while.  

Flu symptoms last 5-7 days except in young children and people with weakened
immune systems.  I must be in one of the two groups because Jim got over this
in just three days of sneezing.  Chemotherapy for lymphoma in 2003 appears
to have erased a lot of my immune system memory and for a while I was getting
a new virus about once a week.  But not measles, chicken pox, or mumps.

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