Over and over we end up taking medicines to stop or cure symptoms and forget about the underlying problem. For example: fevers and coughs.

But in fact it has long been known that those are the body’s way of warding off disease and curing itself.

For example: fever is not an illness in itself. It is a sign of other problems in the body, and is usually caused by a viral or bacterial infection. It is thought to be part of the body’s natural defense mechanism. Fever can be a symptom of a wide variety of illnesses. For example, certain blood disorders, breathing problems, or inflammatory disorders may cause fever. Fever can also be caused by dehydration and some childhood immunizations. But some experts suggest that the fever helps one to get better, and that it should be left to run its course. You just want to control it, if need be by sponging with water.

What about coughs? The mechanism of a cough is the mechanism the body has for removing something that is stuck in the throat. When you eat something and it gets stuck in your throat you cough and are able to expel whatever got caught. But a cough can also be caused by a common cold or flu. This is because the throat and upper airways become reddened and swollen. The brain thinks that this swelling is an object in the throat and tries to remove it by coughing. Coughs caused by a cold or flu usually clear up quite quickly. A persistent cough is a cough that lasts more than two weeks. A persistent cough is usually due to asthma, bronchitis, smoking, whooping cough, lung cancer, heart failure, pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lung) or pneumonia. So taking cough medicines that contain antihistamines that can cause drowsiness, constipation, difficulty passing urine, dry mouth or blurred vision doesn’t solve the underlying problem and in fact adds additional problems. In fact it has been shown that drinking two cups of cocoa or hot chocolate can reduce coughing without any additional problems. (November 2004 edition of The FASEB - Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal). Just make sure you don’t have something more serious like lung cancer or whooping cough.

So next time you get a cough or a fever don’t run to the nearest pharmacy just let your body do the healing or in the case of a cough drink a couple of cups of hot chocolate or in the case of a fever sponge down with some water.