FDA Warns Not to Give Cold Medicine to Children Under 6; What Does a Parent Do? Here's a Honey of an Idea

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) March 12, 2008 -- An FDA panel study released in October came to the conclusion that there is no
evidence that more than 800 'over the counter medicines' help young children. The study said that they "just don't work" and cannot be recommended. Among the ingredients that have caused concern are anti-cough medicines including dextromethorphan, which is the DM in many preparations. They can cause neurological problems, including abnormal movements and hallucinations, even in standard doses.

The panel concluded that the effectiveness of cold and cough medicines are effective only at doses that are too strong for children. The American academy of pediatrics said, "These medicines are ineffective and can have serious side effects. There are other ways to treat cold symptoms."

So, what is a parent supposed to do? In an article printed in 2007 in the Archives of Pediatric Medicine, medical doctors at Penn State University reported on the effectiveness of honey, dextromethorphan (cough syrup), and 'no treatment' on nighttime coughs and sleeping for children age 2 and up. This study was conducted on children with upper respiratory tract infections, nighttime symptoms and illness of 7 days or less. What the doctors did was give the children either honey, honey flavored DM , or 'no treatment at all', 30 minutes prior to bedtime. The result was that there was a significant difference in symptom improvement between treatment groups for both cough reduction and improved sleep, with the honey treatment scoring consistently the best. Honey was significantly superior to 'no treatment', but DM was not better than 'no treatment'.

The conclusion was that honey may be a preferable treatment for the cough and sleep difficulty associated with childhood respiratory tract infection. Even the Word Health Organization cited honey as a potential treatment for cough and cold symptoms.

Honey has many reported health benefits and has repeatedly been shown to aid in wound healing, even for children. Furthermore, honey has well established antioxidant and antimicrobial effects and may help explain its superiority in the study. It should be noted that the study used 'buckwheat honey', a darker honey, and darker honeys tend to have a higher content of phenolic compounds which have been associated with these antioxidant properties of honey that have contributed to its effect in the study.

This is not new news to Dr. Alexander Goroshit who realized the positive effects of honey on human beings over 30 years ago. Using an all natural approach of feeding special nectars to bees, thereby producing different types of honey, led to his development of clinically tested LifeMel honeys. What he did then was to feed the bees specific therapeutic herbs for specific maladies. His reasoning was that the therapeutic herbs have proven to have value but the human body eliminates much of the important ingredients. Instead, by feeding the therapeutic herbs to the bees who ingest them, and through their natural digestive process, the ingredients and their therapeutic properties are incorporated in to the honey giving the herbs a higher level of effectiveness. The product is 100 percent natural and has nothing added to the honey after it is extracted from the beehives.

The result is LifeMel Honey which is produced solely in Israel by ZUF Globus Laboratories under Dr. Gorshit's supervision and is now available in the USA. Dr. Goroshit has developed many different honeys by feeding the bees different formulas of therapeutic herbs. The honeys are then packed without any human touching or further preparation.

In 2006 a clinical study was done using LifeMel Chemo Support honey to determine its effect on chemotherapy patients. Over 66% of the patients in the study experienced higher blood counts, were able to continue with their scheduled chemotherapy program and, generally had an improved quality of life. The conclusion of the study was that LifeMel honey was shown to reduce blood deficiencies for chemotherapy patients and thereby assist in their treatment regimen. The study was published in Medical Oncology, a peer medical journal, and a further clinical trial is now being conducted.

Now he has developed LifeMel Immune in which the bees are fed different therapeutic herbs than the Life Mel Chemo Support to target the immune system. LifeMel immune is also a dark honey (but without the unpleasant aftertaste of buckwheat honey) and designed to help the immune system and fight coughs and colds and reduce their symptoms. LifeMel honey is now being sold in the USA.

One last thing that the Penn State study found, which perhaps is just as important, is that parental sleep improved in a fashion similar to that of their children when using the honey treatment. Sweet, isn't it?

For more information on LifeMel Honeys, click on www.lifemelusa.com