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Can chicken soup and other home remedies really fight off a cold?

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Can chicken soup and other home remedies really fight off a cold?From orange juice to zinc lozenges, chicken soup to garlic capsules, there are plenty of home remedies for the common cold. But is there any evidence that they work?

There are few experiences as universal as catching a cold. And while there are around 200 viruses that cause it, there seem to be almost as many home remedies to combat it. But do any of them work?
At the core of any home remedy is the idea that it bolsters our immune system. When a virus enters our bodies, it comes up against two systems of defence: the innate immune system tries to flush invading cells out, while the adaptive system targets specific pathogens that the body already has had contact with. The latter also creates memory cells when it encounters new pathogens, allowing the body to fight them off if they return. This is why we tend to get chickenpox only once, whereas the common cold – which changes its appearance as it passes from one person to the next, confusing our immune memory cells – is something we can experience often several times a year.
It’s well-known that both lifestyle habits and diet affect the strength of our immune systems. It’s why many of the remedies often reputed to keep the common cold at bay were also circulated on social media with the promise that they could keep us safe during the coronavirus pandemic. So which home remedies are worth trying in an effort to fight off a cold or virus?

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Introducing Health Fix, our newsletter to boost your health and wellbeing

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Subscribe to our weekly email with insights rooted in science to bust myths, for international audiences.

Most of us know that to live a long and healthy life, we should eat well, exercise and look after our mental health. But working out which steps will bring the most improvement to our health and wellbeing can be tricky.
It gets especially hard when we are faced with so much conflicting advice. Distinguishing a clever marketing ploy from a science-backed technique that might actually be good for you is no easy task.
But Health Fix, the BBC’s new dedicated health newsletter, is here to help.

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Reddit groups ban X links in protest at Musk arm gesture

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More than 100 Reddit communities have banned users from posting links to X in protest at owner Elon Musk’s controversial arm gesture at a rally celebrating Donald Trump’s return to office.
The billionaire twice extended his arm out straight as he thanked the crowd for “making it happen.”
Critics, including some historians, said it was a Nazi salute – Mr Musk has dismissed that, saying comparisons with Hitler were “tired” and “dirty tricks.”
However many Reddit users have been unpersuaded by his response describing his actions as “hateful”, leading the moderators of scores of communities – or subreddits – to stop content being shared on X.
X has not commented but Reddit has stressed there is no sitewide ban on X links, telling the BBC in a statement it “has a longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of association”.
However the platform relies heavily on community moderation, where unpaid individuals known as Redditors decide what is – and isn’t – allowed to be published on their own corner of the website.
In many instances, those Redditors have reached a different conclusion, deciding Mr Musk’s actions were so offensive that they won’t link to content from their subreddits on X, potentially reducing traffic, engagement and – ultimately – revenue.
The biggest subreddits to have enforced the ban include basketball community r/NBA, which has 15 million members, female-focused community r/TwoXChromosomes, which has 14 million members, and American football community r/NFL, which has 12 million members.
It is worth remembering that subreddits are almost always run by fans – it does not mean that the NFL or NBA organisations are taking a stance against Musk.
The BBC has independently verified that at least 100 subreddits have banned X posts.
Of this number, more than 60 have at least 100,000 members.
But the actual number that have instituted the ban will likely be significantly higher by taking into account smaller subreddits with only a few thousand members.
And there are many more communities discussing a potential blacklisting.

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How to make oxygen on the moon

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Inside a giant sphere, the engineers pored over their equipment. Before them stood a silvery metal contraption swathed in colourful wires – a box that they hope will one day make oxygen on the moon.
Once the team vacated the sphere, the experiment began. The box-like machine was now ingesting small quantities of a dusty regolith – a mixture of dust and sharp grit with a chemical composition mimicking real lunar soil.
Soon, that regolith was gloop. A layer of it heated to temperatures above 1,650C. And, with the addition of some reactants, oxygen-containing molecules began to bubble out.
“We’ve tested everything we can on Earth now,” says Brant White, a program manager at Sierra Space, a private company. “The next step is going to the moon.”
Sierra Space’s experiment unfolded at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center this summer. It is far from the only such technology that researchers are working on, as they develop systems that could supply astronauts living on a future lunar base.

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