# Nasal mucus and chicken soup **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 2, 2001, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-mucus-and-chicken-soup/48081 "2001-01-02T13:54:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2001, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-mucus-and-chicken-soup/48081/1 "2001-01-02T13:54:07Z")
Well, huh. In [How does my nose produce so much snot so fast when I have a cold?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a971017.html) Cecil mentions the “chicken soup study”. Hey, I remember when the “chicken soup study” came out, a factoid to file in your brain as, “Chicken soup works!” So I thought I would go and look for it. I got as far as this article– [Is chicken soup an essential drug?](http://www.cma.ca/cmaj/vol-161/issue-12/1532.htm) which mentions that the names of the people who did the original study were– [http://www.sbp.com.br/jornal/99-01.02/refbibl-artrev1.html](http://www.sbp.com.br/jornal/99-01.02/refbibl-artrev1.html) 52. Saketkhoo K, Januszkiewicz A, Sackner MA. Effects of drinking hot water, cold water, and chicken soup on nasal mucus velocity and nasal airflow resistance. Chest 1978; 74: 408-11. So then I have this link [http://www.hsrc.org.uk/links/arif/coldsteam.htm](http://www.hsrc.org.uk/links/arif/coldsteam.htm) which keeps timing out with both Google and Dogpile. Is there a UK router down or something? And that was pretty much it for K. Saketkhoo and his study on nasal mucus. There’s a Ramin Saketkhoo who pops up under a Google search for “Saketkhoo” but I doubt if it’s the same person. This link [Home - Pharmacy & Health Science - Research Guides at Drake University](http://informatics.drake.edu/pth/html/chapter/mono/fb002500.htm) is rather tongue-in-cheek, but at the end it gives a bibliography that sounds authentic, that mentions one other study, by Rosner, but I can’t find that, either. Bummer. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2001, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-mucus-and-chicken-soup/48081/2 "2001-01-03T18:05:25Z")
Mrs. Nott and I are recovering nicely from sinus infections. Hers started about a week after mine, during Dr. Shapiro’s vacation. Dr. Shapiro told me to eat chicken soup and inhale steam to loosen up the sinuses. When I asked him what he would tell a vegetarian patient to substitute for the chicken soup, he told me the Chicken Soup Study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He knew of no vegetarian equivalent. He also gave me a scrip for an expectorant called Guaifenex. Boy, oh, boy, does this stuff crank out the snot! Cecil quoted 14 grams of snot at the peak of a cold, but I surely was honking out much more. If the function of nose mucus is flushing out the bad stuff, then Guaifenex is a power washer for your sinuses. Mrs. Nott went to the pinch-doc during Shapiro’s vacation,and she also got the power-wash drug (this time called Guaifenesen.) She also got the astonishing cascade of snot and the same chapped nostrils. We cooked and ate lots of chicken soup. We handled the “inhale steam” part by breathing over a microwaved cup of water. It worked well enough to stay off the Sudafed. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2001, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-mucus-and-chicken-soup/48081/3 "2001-01-04T14:20:18Z")
Guaifenesin rings a bell as the stuff they put in “Expectorant” type cough syrup. It’s nice to know what it can do with its gloves off, at prescription-strength. I think. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2001, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-mucus-and-chicken-soup/48081/4 "2001-01-05T22:22:49Z")
Guaifenesin is in Robitussin. I’ve heard that the benefit of expectorant is dubious. I presume the idea is to clear the congestion out rather than dry it up. Guaifenex sounds like a prescription brand name.