Hack Your Health: Sore Throat Remedies

A cup of hot tea (or water), a spoonful of honey, and a squeeze (or two) of lemon. If your go-to sore throat remedy looks a little something like this, then listen up. In this episode of Hack Your Health, Eric Ascher, DO, a family medicine specialist with Northwell Health, shares an alternative to your traditional tricks for taming that tickle in your throat, and it may just surprise you.

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As a kid, whenever I had a sore or scratchy throat, my mom always knew what to do: she'd grab me a hot cup of tea, squeeze in a lemon, and put in some honey. Or, my dad would grab me a glass of water and pour in some salt, shake it up, and I'd gargle with it. And those would work, but when they didn't... Did you know that you could try gargling with hot sauce?

Hot sauce is made from peppers, and peppers have capsaicin. The capsaicin in the peppers actually help relieve inflammation and reduce pain. Even though it's counterintuitive, I think you should try it. So you take just a little bit of the hot sauce, pour it in your glass of warm water, and then you gargle. I hope if you have a sore throat, that this hack helps.

Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Dr. Eric Ascher, and for more Hack Your Health videos, come back and join us. From The Well by Northwell.