When you are sitting down to your Thanksgiving dinner, and already dreaming about the soup that will be made out of the leftovers, chew on this (slightly silly) tid-bit...chicken soup has anti-inflammatory properties! In a special report (CHEST 2000, 118:1150-1157), Rennard et al. studied the effects of chicken soup on neutrophil chemotaxis in vitro. Sure, in vivo would be better, but that's for another study!
The study prepared a tasty soup (with matzoh balls) from scratch and tested it at different stages of preparation, and compared this to commercially available soups.
Overall, chicken soup was found to inhibit neutrophil chemotaxis compared to media in a concentration-dependent manner. (and luckily, chicken soup was not toxic to neutrophils)
When comparing the commercially available soups (13 different brands) to the homemade soup, the authors found that most inhibited chemotaxis, but some (such as Campbell's Ramon noodles, chicken flavor) enhanced chemotaxis.
Overall, a nice warm bowl of chicken (or turkey) soup may decrease inflammation as well as loosening nasal secretions (due to the vapor), and perhaps improve cilia function (CHEST 1978;10:408-410)
Happy Thanksgiving!!
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5 comments:
Thanks for sharing this fun tid-bit. There is some "evidence" for Mom's chicken soup!!! Are the effects mainly associated with poultry? Or warm broth? Why did they choose chicken soup versus tomato soup or another common "home remedy" to the seasonal cold?
Too bad I did not read this before turkey day...I would have tried to choke down some turkey! I'm more of a ham girl...ha ha.
Hi Janh7630,
From the articles, it looks as if the poultry plays a role (hot water did not have the same effect as the broth). However, I think (no evidence for this) that other soups such as tomato would have many of the same effects, since tomato's have high levels of vitamin C and lycopene. And in many types of soups, there is a high veggie component...
It is interesting as more studies take a look at home or folk remedies, that many of the "tricks" that our parents and grandparents have used over the years may actually have a solid scientific base!
This is interesting- but I wonder how inhibition of neutrophil chemotaxis leads or doesn't lead to inhibition of viral infection.
So I guess eating chicken noodle soup when your sick really does help. I always thought my mom told me to eat it because it was easy to make! I think every family has thier own family remedies and it is very interesting to know that some of them may have scientific base.
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