Chicken Soup: More than an Old Wives' Tale?

Do you remember being fed chicken soup as a child when you were sick? You may be surprised to learn that mom was right – there may be more to chicken soup than simply comfort food.

At its most basic, chicken soup provides nutrition and fluids at a time when we often don’t feel like eating. Hot fluids in particular are supposed to help with colds and flus because inhaling the steam can help to thin our mucous, making it easier to flush out the "baddies".

A small study done on 15 healthy subjects found that chicken soup, whether sipped normally or through a straw, was more effective than both cold and hot water in helping to thin mucous in the nose.¹ No effect on airflow through the nose was found for all three liquids. The authors hypothesized that compared to hot water alone, chicken soup may have aromatic components or a mechanism related to its taste that contribute to its added effect.¹

Chicken soup may also have a direct impact on our immune system. Cold and flu symptoms are actually due to an immune, inflammatory response from our bodies. When we are infected by the cold or flu virus, it increases the movement, or chemotaxis, of our white blood cells, particularly neutrophils. This leads to symptoms including runny nose, nasal congestion, cough and sore throat. It is thought that by inhibiting neutrophil chemotaxis, it can help relieve these cold and flu symptoms.

Rennard and others² tested 13 commercial soups (not just chicken!) and one homemade chicken soup on their ability to inhibit neutrophil chemotaxis in a lab setting. All but three of the soups tested demonstrated some effect, with five of the store-bought samples showing greater inhibiting activity than the homemade soup.² All five of those commercial soups also contained chicken. Further testing on the homemade soup found that each of the ingredients were able to inhibit chemotaxis, and that as the soup was diluted, the effect was weakened.² 

Despite this evidence, there have been no direct studies that look at the effect of chicken soup on the common cold or the flu. But it doesn’t hurt to sip on a bowl of chicken soup some time this winter, and it may be helping more than you think!

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