Honey Don't Cough

A. Follow this link to our Products Page, which can guide you to online and retail locations for Honey Don't Cough and other Buckwheat Honey Products.

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Q. Does Honey, Don’t Cough’s “Children’s Buckwheat Honey” contain any medications?

A. No. Honey, Don’t Cough's “Children’s Buckwheat Honey” is 100% pure dark Buckwheat Honey, it is a natural substance made by honeybees. It is not a synthetic drug made in a chemical plant.

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Q. How does Honey, Don’t Cough’s “Children’s Buckwheat Honey” work?

A. Even researchers and physicians do not know exactly how Buckwheat Honey works to reduce cough, however research has demonstrated Buckwheat Honey to have following natural properties:
• Demulcent (throat soothing) effects.
• Powerful antioxidant properties of phenolics, peptides, organic acids, enzymes,
and maillard reaction products.
• Increased immune system cytokine release.
• Direct antimicrobial effects.

Most likely, Buckwheat Honey's effectiveness is a combination of the above listed properties.

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Q. Is Buckwheat Honey a new treatment for cough?

A. No. People have used Buckwheat Honey to treat cough for hundreds of years, in the 1950’s it became less popular because people started using drugs to treat their symptoms. In December 2007, Penn State published a study that demonstrated Buckwheat Honey out-performing conventional honey-flavored cough medicine for children’s cough.

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Q. What is Buckwheat Honey? How is it different from “normal” honey?

A. Honey has different properties depending on what type of flowers the bees get their nectar from. Bee keepers will often place bee hives in certain types of flowering fields so the bees get most of their nectar from one type of flower. For instance, the type of honey normally sold in stores is “clover honey,” because the bee hives are placed in clover fields. Buckwheat Honey is made by bees when the predominant flower they pollinate is the Buckwheat Flower. Buckwheat Honey is darker, thicker, and has more antioxidant properties than most other honeys. See wikipedia’s article on “monofloral honey” for more information. In the wild, bees often pollinate various flowers creating a “mixed honey,” this is usually called “wildflower honey.”

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Q. What is “wildflower honey?”

A. In the wild, bees often pollinate various flowers creating a “mixed honey,” this is usually called “wildflower honey.” These honeys are fun to try because of their variety of taste. Because wildflower honeys are typically lighter colored, they have less therapeutic value. They are also more common and less expensive, therefore many in the health industry will use wildflower honey instead of more effective and medicinal dark Buckwheat Honey.

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Q. Why is Honey, Don’t Cough's honey so dark?

A. Research from the University of Illinois and other universities have demonstrated that darker honeys have more antioxidant and other medicinal properties. Because we always strive for the highest quality products, Honey, Don’t Cough only uses the darkest Buckwheat Honey available. Other companies will claim to use Buckwheat Honey, however they mix in lighter honeys that are less therapeutic, to save money.

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Q. Do “honey-flavored” products work as well as 100% Pure Buckwheat Honey?

A. No! Penn State’s study compared honey-flavored dextromethorphan to 100% pure dark Buckwheat Honey, and the honey- flavored medicine did not perform as well as real dark Buckwheat Honey.

Always check the product ingredients, many products will put “honey” in their name, but will be mostly corn syrup with only a taste of honey. Be careful not to fall for this trap; as Smokey Robinson says, “a taste of honey is worse than none at all.”

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Q. Does Honey, Don’t Cough claim it’s “Children’s Buckwheat Honey” works better than Buckwheat Honey from other sources?

A. No. At Honey, Don’t Cough, our primary concern is that parents give their children safe and effective products. We encourage use of Buckwheat Honey from any quality producer. We started packaging “Children’s Buckwheat Honey” with the goals of making pure Buckwheat Honey available on pharmacy shelves and providing it in easy-to-use pre-dosed packets.

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Q. My local farmers market has Buckwheat Honey, how much should I give my child?

A. We use our dosing based on the Penn State Study. Here is what our box says:

Children under 1 year old: DO NOT give Honey to Children under 1 year old!
Children 1 to 6 years old: 2.5 mL (1/2 teaspoon)
Children 6 to 12 years old: 5 mL (1 teaspoon)
Children and adults 12 and older: 10 mL (2 teaspoons)

Give before bed, can repeat every 6 hours if needed.

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Q. Will Buckwheat Honey cure my child’s cough?

A. Research from Penn State University demonstrated Buckwheat Honey reduced children’s cough symptoms better than conventional drug therapy. To date, there are no scientifically proven ways to cure a cough due to a cold.

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Q. Does Buckwheat Honey help sore throats?

A. We do not know. People have used Buckwheat Honey for years to treat sore throats, but to date, no well-done placebo-controlled trials have been performed to see if it works better than a placebo.

Buckwheat honey is believed to possess:

• Demulcent (throat soothing) effects.
• Powerful antioxidant properties of phenolics, peptides, organic acids, enzymes,
and maillard reaction products.
• Increased immune system cytokine release.
• Direct antimicrobial affects.

All of these properties could theoretically benefit a sore throat.

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Q. Does Buckwheat Honey still work if it is put in tea?

A. People have used Buckwheat Honey for years to treat cough by mixing it with various substances (lemon juice, tea, whisky), but to date, no well-done placebo-controlled trials have been performed to see if doing this will work better than a placebo.

Buckwheat Honey is believed to possess:

• Demulcent (throat soothing) effects.
• Powerful antioxidant properties of phenolics, peptides, organic acids, enzymes,
and maillard reaction products.
• Increased immune system cytokine release.
• Direct antimicrobial affects.

Mixing Buckwheat Honey with tea may change the demulcent effects, but it’s other properties should still remain.

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Q. My child does not like the taste of Buckwheat Honey, what do you recommend I do?

A. We have found that most children like the taste of Buckwheat Honey, but some children do not. If your child does not want to drink it directly from the packet, try dissolving it in warm water, or juice (some people will add a little lemon).

Buckwheat Honey is believed to possess:
• Demulcent (throat soothing) effects.
• Powerful antioxidant properties of phenolics, peptides, organic acids, enzymes,
and maillard reaction products. • Increased immune system cytokine release.
• Direct antimicrobial affects.

Therefore diluting Buckwheat Honey with water or juice may change the demulcent effects, but it's other properties should still remain.

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Q. My child likes the taste of Honey Don't Cough so much, that when no one was around he got into the box and drank all the packets, what should I do?

A. Honey Don't Cough is pure Buckwheat Honey, it is not dangerous for the child to take more than the recommended dose. Make sure you talk to your child about the dangers of taking medications without adult supervision.

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Q. Is Honey, Don’t Cough's “Children’s Buckwheat Honey” a natural product or a homeopathic product? And what is the difference between a homeopathic product and a natural product?

A. This is a very good question because most people incorrectly use the terms homeopathic and natural interchangeably.

Homeopathic theory is difficult to understand because it was invented before people understood how the body and chemicals interacted. We will attempt to explain it:

Homeopathy comes from the Greek homoios “similar” + pathos “suffering” or “disease.” Homeopathy believes in what they call the “law of similars” that states an ill person can be treated if they are given a chemical that produces, in a healthy person, symptoms similar to those of the illness. For example strychnine (typically called nux-vomica on the labeling package) causes nausea and vomiting, so homeopathic practitioners often use strychnine to treat nausea and vomiting. In order to prevent sickness from the poisons, homeopathy also believes in extreme dilution (with water, alcohol, or some other substance) of the poisons before it is given. The government considers homeopathy safe because the poison is diluted so many thousands of times that the original poison is essentially no longer there. Companies that sell homeopathic medications claim that the water is now “imprinted” and somehow the body knows the original chemical was there and somehow the body knows to get better. It is difficult to find a company that sells homeopathic products who is willing to submit their products to placebo-controlled trials.

Naturopathic medicine is a complementary and alternative medicine, which emphasizes the body's intrinsic ability to heal and maintain itself. Naturopaths prefer to use natural remedies such as herbs and foods rather than surgery or synthetic drugs. Naturopathic practice includes many different modalities. Practitioners emphasize a holistic approach to patient care, and may recommend patients use conventional medicine alongside their treatments. (The above excerpt is from Wikipedia)

Based on the above definitions, Honey, Don’t Cough's “Children’s Buckwheat Honey” is a natural product because it is 100% pure Buckwheat Honey. Because it is not diluted until there is essentially no honey left, it is not classified as homeopathic.

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Q. If my child has a “bee allergy”, will they have an allergy to honey?

A. Most “bee allergies” are to the bee’s venom, not to the bee themselves. Luckily, it is rare for a person to be allergic to honey because of an allergy to bee venom.

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Q. Why should I not give honey products to children under 1 year of age?

A. Medical experts recommend never giving corn syrup or honey to children under the age of 1 in order to avoid infant botulism. The following are excerpts from Wikipedia’s article on botulism:

Infant botulism was first recognized in 1976. It affects about 100 infants per year in the United States. Infants less than 12 months of age are susceptible, with almost 90% of cases occurring between the ages of 3 weeks and 6 months of age at presentation. The mode of action of this form is through colonization by germinating spores in the gut of an infant. The first symptom is usually constipation, followed by generalized weakness, loss of head control and difficulty feeding. Like the other forms of botulism, the symptoms are caused by the absorption of botulinum toxin, and typically progress to a symmetric descending flaccid paralysis. Death is often the eventual outcome unless the infant receives artificial ventilation. Infants under the age of 1 should not have corn syrup nor honey.

Honey, corn syrup, and other sweeteners are potentially dangerous for infants. This is partly because the digestive juices of an infant are less acidic than older children and adults, and may be less likely to destroy ingested spores. In addition, young infants do not yet have sufficient numbers of resident microbiota in their intestines to competitively exclude C. botulinum. Unopposed in the small intestine, the warm body temperature creates a medium for botulinum spores to germinate, divide and produce toxin. Thus, C. botulinum is able to colonize the gut of an infant with relative ease, whereas older children and adults are not typically susceptible to ingested spores. C. botulinum spores are widely present in the environment, including honey. For this reason, it is advised that neither honey, nor any other sweetener, be given to children until after 12 months. Nevertheless, the majority of infants with botulism have no history of ingestion of honey, and the exact source of the offending spores is unclear about 85% of the time. Spores present in the soil are a leading candidate for most cases, and often a history of construction near the home of an affected infant may be obtained.

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Q. Is Honey Don't Cough regulated by the FDA?

A. Honey Don't Cough is regulated as a "Natural Supplement" by the FDA. We strive to keep our standards well above the FDA's minimal requirements for natural supplements.

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Q. Can adults use Honey Don't Cough?

A. Yes, many adults use Buckwheat Honey for cough and sore throat. The adult dose is officially 4 packets at a time, but some adults have noticed a benefit from taking only one packet. We recommend trying it for yourself and seeing which dose helps you.

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Q. Is Honey Don't Cough safe for people with diabetes?

A. Honey Don't Cough does not interact with diabetes medications and it only has 3 grams of carbohydrates so it typically does not rapidly change blood sugar (by comparison a single carrot has about 7 grams of carbohydrates).

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