A remedy that is delicious.

Flu season is well and truly upon us. You can't go anywhere without someone in your company sneezing or coughing. The natural thing to do when you have one of those coughing fits is to grab a drink such as honey and lemon. However, it turns out that there is an alternative cure and it's something we can all get behind. Professor Alyn Morice, from Hull University, is claiming that chocolate is the answer. Writing for The Daily Mail, Alyn said:

"I know that might sound like something out of Mary Poppins, but as an independent clinician who has spent years researching the mechanism of cough, I can assure you the evidence is actually as solid a bar of Fruit and Nut.

We have just seen the results of the largest real-world study of an over-the-counter cough remedy ever undertaken in Europe."

He explained that the evidence came from a study, called ROCOCO, which consisted of a trial, involving 163 patients, of different over the counter cough medicines.

Remarking on the results Alyn said:

"This proves that a new medicine which contains cocoa is better than a standard linctus.

The head-to-head comparison found that patients taking the chocolate-based medicine had a significant improvement in symptoms within two days."

The reason it works so well is because it's "stickier and more viscose than standard cough medicines, so it forms a coating which protects nerve endings in the throat which trigger the urge to cough."

It's definitely worth a try anyway.