Chicken Soup for the Lungs

Every year around this time, I get many questions about how to withstand colds and flu. This season, I’m trotting out an old remedy: chicken soup. However, it’s not your regular old chicken soup. This “souped-up” chicken soup is loaded with hot spices to support your immune system and to help thin and expel mucus.

People with upper respiratory viruses, asthma, and bronchitis usually produce excess mucus, which eventually gets into the lungs. This build-up often leads to bronchospasms—the constriction of muscles in the walls of the airways. These spasms contribute to difficulty in breathing and sleepless nights. You don’t hear much about bronchospasms, but our constant exposure to airborne toxins and particles make them a real twenty-first–century health challenge.

Mucus—Both a Blessing and a Curse

The lungs produce mucus as a protective agent. It traps bacteria, antigens, dust, and other irritants that enter the respiratory passages during breathing. In this way, mucus is a blessing.

However, the overproduction of mucus is a symptom of many common illnesses—including colds, flu, asthma, allergies, and chronic bronchitis. Coughing is the body’s way to get rid of the excess, but this effort can be challenging because of the thick and sticky nature of mucus. In fact, I have had patients suffer minor strokes, pass out, pull muscles, or even fracture ribs as a result of their coughing attacks.

Grandma Knew Best

Chicken soup with garlic or hot peppers can be of great help. Most people have heard that chicken soup soothes colds and flu, but they don’t know why. Some may even consider it an old wives’ tale that has no real merit. However, it really does work.

Like most protein foods, chicken contains a natural amino acid called cysteine. A form of this amino acid called N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) is a powerful antioxidant that works in the body to strengthen immunity. It has been one of my favorite winter supplements for years because it’s been shown to help alleviate flu symptoms. NAC is also used in pharmaceutical products as a mucus-dissolving agent for respiratory conditions that result in excessive or unusually thick mucus.

For many of you, the idea of chicken soup is nothing new—it was Grandma’s favorite comfort and feel-good soup. From a medicinal standpoint, “Grandma was partially right,” says Irwin Ziment, M.D., a retired pulmonologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles who has studies how ancient healers used garlic and hot peppers to treat mucus build-up. “Except she didn’t put enough garlic and hot pepper into it.” The garlic and hot peppers add heat and pungency, and are a knockout punch against mucus.

It may sound tortuous but, according to Dr. Ziment, when correctly prepared, the soup should bring tears to the eyes and cause a runny nose as it loosens the mucus. A runny nose and watery eyes mean the body has been stimulated to loosen mucus at even the deepest levels—making it is easier to cough out the congestion and feel better. There may be no drug that can more effectively break up mucus in your lungs, nor any inhaler that works as deeply. I recommend a more measured approach than Dr. Ziment. Start with a mild mix and work up to a level that you can handle and that is also effective at clearing your sinuses.

Unlike this potent chicken soup which gets your mucus moving, drugs that affect mucus, such as atropine, merely dry the mucous membranes. And, as the body starts to require the drugs to keep the mucus levels down, a “rebound effect” occurs. Not only does the mucus return when the drugs wear off, it often returns at levels that are worse than they were before taking the drug.

If you find yourself laid up with the flu or coming down with a cold, Dr. Ziment recommends eating chicken soup three times a day—spike it with garlic, hot peppers, hot curry, and/or Tabasco sauce. If you feel really poorly, you can pour it in a mug and sip it throughout the day.

For the sake of variety, I asked Dr. Ziment if there were any substitutes for souped-up chicken soup. He suggested hot salsa (the hotter the better, of course). For fans of Japanese food, he suggested wasabi. Anything pungent will create the desired response.