NO EVIDENCE THAT COUGH MEDICINES WORK

There is no evidence that medicines for persistent coughs have any beneit, and one in seven patients actually experience negative side effects, a study has found. Swiss researchers comparing the medications against a placebo found no examples where they signiicantly sped up recovery or improved patient wellbeing in any of the other areas tested. This is despite more than $4billion (Dhs15b) being spent around the world each year on overthe-counter cough medicines, with the researchers saying there has been little work to evaluate all the medications on the market.

Instead of prescribing, Dr Benjamin Speich and his fellow authors from the University of Basel, Switzerland, said GPS should reassure patients that their symptoms will get better on their own without medication. “This review indicates that, despite being one of the most common causes for seeking medical advice in primary care, there is no beneicial treatment for subacute cough,” they said. For the study Dr Speich and his team only looked at clinical trials, which have randomly allocated patients to either receive a medication or a placebo treatment — therefore minimising the chance of any effects being a coincidence.