Honey (Including Buckwheat Honey) for Cough Relief

Research suggests that honey, including buckwheat honey, may help reduce cough frequency and severity and improve sleep quality in children with upper respiratory tract infections, with a body of evidence spanning multiple randomized controlled trials, Cochrane systematic reviews, and meta-analyses consistently pointing in a supportive direction. Studies indicate that honey generally outperforms no treatment and may perform comparably to dextromethorphan, a common over-the-counter cough suppressant, while likely outperforming diphenhydramine, though the evidence quality across these reviews has been rated as low to moderate due to methodological limitations in the underlying trials, including small sample sizes and the practical difficulty of blinding participants to a distinctive substance like honey. The picture is less clear for adults, with at least one randomized controlled trial in adults with acute bronchitis finding no meaningful difference between honey, other common remedies, and usual care, and a 2021 meta-analysis noting that when honey is compared directly to a placebo rather than to no treatment or antibiotics, the findings across studies are inconsistent. Researchers across multiple reviews have concluded that while honey shows promise as a widely available and generally well-tolerated option, more rigorously designed, placebo-controlled trials are needed before firm conclusions can be drawn, and mild adverse effects such as nervousness, insomnia, and gastrointestinal symptoms have been reported in small numbers of children in some studies.