For the benefit of non-Americans, it's common for petty crimes in the US to receive a sentence in lieu of jail of some number of hours of "community service", like picking up trash, or working at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter.

>initial strong claim that it doesn't do anything

I did not make this claim. I said there was no significant evidence that it does anything.

>I can actually find reputed sources (top tier universities) saying that it does.

I strongly recommend you have this conversation with your doctor.

>Unlike you, I do have a good science education and I like to learn.

Awful bold of you to assume you know anything whatsoever about my background, education, or professional experience.

>You are either just dumb

✌️

Hey I'm not really interested in debating this any further. If you want to find evidence supporting your belief, you're going to find it. This doesn't mean it's real. The fact that you took my "vinegar cures cancer" search (which is just a fake claim I made up) and now believe there's merit to it because you found a search result that glances at the idea sideways is an example of the problem.

Talk to your doctor if you want medical advice, not social media.

> Are you saying that sharing studies/literature is pointless?

Depends on what your goal is. Scientific and medical studies are written for a specific target audience that is not the kind of person that would be asking an ELI5 medical question on Reddit.

If you're a research doctor wanting to discuss a specific finding so that you can understand how it relates to your area of research or whether to establish a new standard of medical care around it, by all means share and discuss. Reading medical studies requires a deep understanding of study methodology and the scientific method that most people do not possess.

This is why we fought an obnoxious culture war in the middle of the COVID pandemic where people were vomiting up links to all sorts of studies that they felt "proved" their side when it rarely did.

Medical doctors have this training and this background and if you want to understand how a study relates to how you should be treated for your illness, the best way to do that is to talk to your doctor about it.

> So I did some search and almost all articles from big universities are saying acid in lemon does help cut the mucus.

No you didn't. You did a Google search for "lemon acid cuts mucus" and found links to sites hawking homeopathic or alternative medicine, food blogs, and YouTube content producers. If you'd found a real research study on the topic you should be able to link it.

You can do a Google search for other stupid things, like "vinegar cures cancer" and find at least a few search results that seem to agree with what you're searching for. Just because you can find a random site on the internet agreeing with you doesn't mean it's a medical fact.

> So, maybe you need to comeback with some legitimate sources (including doctors) that say otherwise.

I'm saying no significant evidence exists establishing that these remedies are effective at anything. A very small number of studies have been conducted into things like honey (not really lemon), and they all say things like this one does in the end:

>> There is no strong evidence for or against the use of honey.

The rationale is "it may make you feel better 🤷‍♀️". There is no evidence to indicate it's therapeutic, but if it causes you to drink more fluids, and if you subjectively feel better even if you aren't necessarily getting better, then there's no harm in recommending it.

There is actually no product on the market, prescription or over-the-counter that is known to meaningfully reduce your cough symptoms or the time it takes for you to recover from a cold. This includes things like Zicam and OTC cough syrups (dextromethorphan, etc.). The more these drugs are studied the less confidence there is that they a single thing to help you. A lot of these remedies came into use before we have today's standards for establishing their safety and efficacy.

The placebo effect is a very real phenomenon. It's not just "you're imagining that you're better". The belief that you are being helped can result in very real, measurable, physiological improvements. This typically happens because of a reduction in stress associated with the illness. When you anticipate more (and worsening) symptoms, your apprehension can release stress hormones that exacerbate them. The certainty that taking a drug will make you feel better can reduce or eliminate that stress, giving you better outcomes.

I believe you are making this up.

There is virtually no evidence that honey reduces the severity of symptoms or reduces time to recover for respiratory infections.

Really most of the evidence comes from this one review: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22419319/

But everyone citing this review as proof that honey works is misunderstanding what the study is saying. Here is the Conclusions section (emphasis mine):

> > Honey may be better than 'no treatment' and diphenhydramine in the symptomatic relief of cough but not better than dextromethorphan. There is no strong evidence for or against the use of honey.

A lot of studies come out with these "may" conclusions. They use weasel words like this because the study usually has some flaw, such as a low sample size, or some significant uncontrolled variables (eg., are you sure it was the honey or just that they drank something?). You get to scientific (thus medical) truth through multiple studies with different methodologies, and only when you get consistent agreement do you start accepting something as truth. We're not there with honey.

But even here they were talking about pasteurized honey. Raw honey specifically is never recommended medically due to the high risk of botulism. If your doctor is prescribing raw honey for a cough they should be referred to their medical board.

As I keep saying, please don't take medical advice from randoms on social media. Just talk to your doctor and stop spreading medical misinformation until you do.

Acids from lemons and limes can improve the shelf life of some foods by inhibiting bacterial growth. Pickling is a common example of this (acetic acid though rather than citric or ascorbic acid).

There is no evidence that eating these foods will do anything to any bacteria in your body. Your stomach already contains an impressive amount of digestive acid and your gut is fully colonized by a significant biome of bacteria that you would not want to kill. Eating a lemon isn't going to do anything.

But even if it did, colds are not actually caused by bacteria. They're caused by viruses.

If you want advice on how to prevent or recover from illness more quickly, please talk to your doctor and don't listen to random people on social media. That's the lesson you should take away from this. All of this junk about raw honey and vitamin C is just that: junk medicine.

>Honey actually breaks down proteins ( mucus is a protein).

Even if this were true, this says nothing about whether it fights illness or reduces time to recovery.

>it is very effective at killing bacteria

Colds are not caused by bacteria.

This is junk medicine. Get your medical advice from your doctor and stop taking it from random people on Reddit.

>Sorry. Are you confident that lemon has no effect?

I am confident that there is no significant evidence supporting the claim that it does.

>other answers seem to say that citric acid cuts mucus.

I can find no supporting evidence for this.

Drinking water thins mucus. If you want to put some lemon in your water and that makes it more likely for you to drink water, then lemon can help you thin mucus.

>And who has any sources to back them up?

As with all requests for medical advice, talk to your doctor and don't listen to random people on social media. Even if someone can come prepared with a study that they feel proves them right, you have no idea whether that study says what they claim it does or whether the study was done correctly or whether it's an outlier when 10 other studies prove the opposite conclusion. Understanding how to read scientific studies is a skill they teach you in medical school. Talk to your doctor.

>ELI5. Why is honey and lemon a popular cure for cold like symptoms.

Because people believe it is a cure, and this belief passes through the population as a meme.

People see demand for products containing these ingredients, and so they make them in order to profit from their sale. The presence of these products in stores reinforces the belief that they do something, and so the meme perpetuates.

People looking for validation that the products work will try the product, and then will feel better, and will conclude that the product caused them to feel better even if they would have gotten better anyway. This also reinforces the belief.

We also have a compulsion to share our knowledge with others, even if that knowledge is wrong. So anytime you ask a question like this on social media you'll find many people convinced of their beliefs who sound very authoritative telling you about the benefits of things like raw honey, lemon juice, or that magical fluid vinegar. This also perpetuates the belief.

There is evidence that a vitamin C deficiency hurts your ability to recover from illnesses. It's very hard to be vitamin C deficient unless you're on a pirate ship for a year, so vitamin C supplementation is almost always pointless. You'll just pee it out. Your doctor can tell you if you are deficient in vitamin C.

In other words, there's no actual evidence that any of these home remedies actually do anything aside from the placebo effect.

But it's also relatively harmless, and if you're drinking fluids or eating soup in order to get that bonus vitamin C or whatever the remedy is that you're taking, you're getting fluids. It's important to be hydrated when you're sick so that your immune system has access to all of your body's waterways to fight off the infection. So even if putting lemon juice or honey in your water doesn't help you directly, if it encourages you to drink more water, and reduces your stress, it's still helpful. This is why your doctor may still encourage you to try things like this at home. It makes you feel better feeling like you have some control over your own recovery even if you don't and you're getting fluids, which really is what your body needs.

Rapid antigen tests commonly give false negatives. They are better thought of as tests to prove you have COVID, not tests to prove you don't. You need multiple tests if you're sick and want to be sure it's not COVID. Time is only part of it.