13/12/2020
During cold and flu season, when your throat feels scratchy, your nose is stuffy and you’re achy and tired, your first instinct may be to reach for a bowl of chicken soup. Many people rely on chicken soup when they’re sick, not just for its familiar, pleasing flavor but for its soothing, healing qualities. (In fact, some kosher delis describe chicken soup on their menus as “Jewish penicillin.”) But is the soup actually good for you, or are reports about its benefits merely old wives’ tales?
“Chicken soup has specific medicinal qualities, and if you doubt it, ask your grandmother,” says Murray Grossan, MD, an otolaryngologist in Los Angeles. “It’s an old remedy, of course.”
Some research confirms the commonly held notion that chicken soup may help you feel better when you have an upper respiratory infection. One study, which studied the effects of homemade chicken soup on neutrophils (white blood cells that fight infection in the body) in a laboratory setting, suggests that chicken soup may have anti-inflammatory properties, which may help to ease cold and flu symptoms.
“Chicken soup, in the lab, can block some of the cells that are present in inflammation,” says study author Stephen Rennard, MD, professor in the internal medicine division of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine in Omaha. “If this happened when people eat the soup, it is possible there could be less inflammation and fewer symptoms.”
👩🏼🍳 I kind of love it when the holistic world and western medicine merge! It’s a win for us all. This post is an excerpt from a recent journal, y’all go ahead and order some soup and take that Vitamin C too! 👩🏼🍳
