Good news for chocoholics. The next time you come down with a cough, just pop a piece of your favorite treat and you’ll get all the cough-suppressing effects of codeine syrup without the fuzzy-headed side-effects. Here’s how it works.
Professor Alyn Morice, a respected authority on all things related to coughs and respiratory medicine, wrote in the Daily Mail that chocolate can soothe coughs better than codeine syrup by forming a sticky coating that protects the nerve endings in your throat that cause you to cough.
The viscosity of the melted chocolate coating also allows cough-suppressing ingredients naturally present in cocoa to come into contact with your ravaged throat nerves and calm them down, says Professor Morice.
Smother your cough with yummy chocolate without the sleepy side-effects of codeine? It’s almost enough to make you welcome winter.
Drinking a cup of hot chocolate does not have the same cough-suppressing effect. As cozy and comforting as hot chocolate might feel, the diluted chocolate solution does not have enough long-term clinging contact with the nerves in your throat to be effective. According to Professor Morice, you’d be better off sucking on a piece of chocolate, letting it melt down slowly to coat your throat. We’d add, make that a piece of dark chocolate if you want to get the healthy benefit of natural antioxidants.
https://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind-and-body/chocolate-fights-coughs-better-codeine-says-science