Cure can worsen your cold

Daily Telegraph
Jan. 15, 2006

IT is a staple of most medicine cabinets but doctors have warned that over-the-counter cough syrup could worsen symptoms of a common cold instead of improving them.

In new guidelines for treating coughs, the American College of Chest Physicians yesterday recommended dropping cough syrup as a treatment and instead relying on low-cost antihistamines.

"Cough syrups may suppress a cough a little bit. But they don't treat the underlying cause. They won't make you better any faster," the physician group's president Dr Michael Alberts said.

In Australia, a growing number of general practitioners are advising patients to tough it out rather than waste money on cough syrups, as colds typically go away on their own.

The inefficiency of cough syrups has been proven locally by the Australian Consumers' Association.

In a survey conducted by the watchdog's magazine Choice, cough syrups were found to worsen symptoms of colds in children.

Echoing the concerns of their American colleagues, Dr Wendy Hu and Dr Kathryn Currow of The Children's Hospital, Westmead, said: "As a general rule, medicines should not be given unless they do more good than harm, but unfortunately most over-the-counter cough mixtures don't follow this rule."

The US doctors said cough syrups often contain codeine derivatives which can sedate children but do not help the cough to go away.

"Many cough mixtures contain complicated mixtures of different medications in doses that are less than what would be recommended to be effective that can increase the risk of side effects," they said.

"For example, the addition of an antihistamine increases the sedative effect, and by making the mucous thicker, can make it more difficult to cough up, causing a second infection."

Recent studies in the US have found that cough syrup - usually containing the cough suppressant dextromethorphan and the expectorant guaifenesin - works no better than sugar water. In drafting its new guidelines coming out on Tuesday in the journal Chest, the physicians group looked at the research and concluded that cough syrup can give short-term relief for some people but that's about all, Dr Alberts said.

The group recommends using older-generation antihistamines that may attack the nasal drip and runny nose that cause many coughs.