Medical news you will like

I guess that pain is the mother of knowledge. Your all-too-human Minor Heretic was felled by a virus last weekend and has spent the last several nights engaging in the following minute-by-minute ritual:

1)Clutch ribcage
2)Cough up lung(s)
3)Retrieve and reinsert lung(s)
4)Moan quietly

I tried every cough remedy readily available to me – Robitussin, zinc lozenges, slippery elm lozenges, inhaling steam, hot tea, hot peppers, honey and lemon, honey and whiskey, just whiskey – all to no avail.

I spoke to a friend on the phone, a physician's assistant, who recommended an asthma remedy called Proventil, which apparently outperforms codeine, the champion of cough suppression. Codeine is prescription-only and tough to get, due to its narcotic and addictive properties. I hit the Internet and started researching. I went to sites such as Medline, which provide abstracts of clinical studies for practicing physicians, in order to get something beyond marketing and superstition. What I found on the cough suppression front was both sweeping and surprising.

First, anything that you can get without a prescription at your local pharmacy or supermarket is no better than a placebo. The clinical results range from “placebo” to “statistically indeterminate.” That includes the standard products containing Dextromethorphan and Guaifenesin.

Some of you may say, “But I use NyQuil, and it gets me to sleep.” Of course it does. NyQuil is 50 proof alcohol (whiskey is 84 proof) mixed with Doxylamine succinate, an antihistamine/hypnotic. It's good old Thunderbird and downers in a socially acceptable and convenient package. To paraphrase the advertising slogan, its the cheapjack-wino-garbagehead-junkie-so-you-can-sleep-in-a-box-in-an-alley medicine.

Proventil failed in the double blind studies, but another asthma inhaler succeeded. Atrovent, generically Ipratropium bromide, actually provided relief from coughing. It has two problems. First, it is a prescription drug, and second, it costs $90 a bottle. So much for that.

Then, in the process of searching for better Atrovent pricing, I found the Holy Grail of cough suppression research. According to researchers from Imperial College London and Royal Brompton Hospital, there is a substance that is 33% more effective than codeine – theobromine. Theobromine is one of the chemicals naturally found in chocolate. The London researchers used 1000 mg of theobromine, roughly the amount found in two to three ounces of dark chocolate or two cups of cocoa. Sometimes life is kind.

Of course, if you want this treatment to work you can't use the brown crayon that passes for chocolate in much of the U.S. Ordinary milk chocolate doesn't have enough cocoa in it to pack sufficient theobromine punch. Go for the high-end 80 to 90% cocoa chocolate bars, or better yet, make yourself a cup of cocoa from 100% bakers cocoa. The hot liquid version will have less fat and you can add just enough sweetener for your taste. I'd also recommend that you look for “Fair Trade” cocoa and chocolate to insure that the folks on the other end of your medicinal supply chain got a fair shake.

As I write this I am sipping from a mug containing 1 cup hot water, 3 tablespoons Equal Exchange 100% bakers cocoa, and a tablespoon of honey. My lungs are staying in their proper place.

I am reminded of a scene in the Woody Allen movie “Sleeper.” Allen's character has been woken up from several hundred years of suspended animation and finds himself in a science fiction world of the future. The doctors in charge of him are discussing his strange requests for wheat germ and organic carrots. One of them asks, “Doesn't he know about health foods such as deep fat and hot fudge?” Woody got it half right.