Sock Onions And Snail Slime: Do Any Weird Cold Remedies Actually Work?

Before we get started though, it’s important to know that, at least in medicine, there’s a distinction between remedies and cures: Remedies offer to temporarily relieve symptoms, while cures resolve them entirely. The bad news is that there’s no cure for the common cold, but we can at least investigate whether necking some snail syrup will actually give you some respite.

Onions in your socks

Various cultures have believed the humble onion to have medicinal properties throughout history – and somehow, that’s since evolved into putting sliced-up onions in your socks in an attempt to relieve the symptoms of a cold. 

This is a “remedy” that has no actual scientific research to back it up; a quick search on Google Scholar or PubMed will confirm that to you. We can’t say we’re entirely surprised that scientists haven’t found any evidence for it – though if they did and found out it actually did work, they’d more than certainly have a shot at winning an Ig Nobel.

Of course, given the lack of scientific evidence either way about oniony socks, you could argue that means there’s at least some chance that it might still work – but honestly, is the smell really worth that unlikely possibility? If you’d like to alienate everyone around you, then maybe.

Nasal rinsing

Perhaps the worst part of a cold is a stuffy nose; not being able to breathe as you normally would is zero percent fun. Luckily, there’s a remedy that actually can work for some people, even if it can get a little gross: nasal rinsing.

Using containers designed for the job such as neti pots and squeeze bottles, it involves tilting your head down and sideways and then pouring slightly warm, sterilized salt water into one nostril as you breathe through your mouth. This helps to flush mucus out of the nasal passages, which becomes apparent when it either starts dripping out of the other nostril along with the water or when you blow your nose afterward.

While this can be pretty effective, it’s important that nasal rinsing is done safely. That means using distilled, sterilized, or boiled (and then cooled!) tap water is a must. Though rare, using unsterilized tap water can result in amoeba infections, which can be serious. 

Similarly, it’s essential to keep the device clean, as that could otherwise introduce microbial nasties – and the last thing you want when you’ve got a cold is more of those.

As another option, you can pick up specially designed nonmedicated saline nasal sprays from a pharmacy, which offer the same decongesting benefits and might be easier for some people to use.

Snail slime

As icky as it might seem, snail-based products such as syrup, paste, and even chocolate have reportedly been in use as remedies for colds at least since the 1800s. Nowadays, in countries such as France, a syrup containing proteins extracted from the mucus of Helix pomatia snails can be found in pharmacies as a cough medicine.

Unlike oniony socks, there has actually been some scientific investigation into this syrup, known as helicidine, and its potential anti-coughing effects – it’s just not very good. 

A number of the studies are outdated, having been conducted in the 1950s. One 1999 study looked into how it could potentially work to relax airway muscles, but the results were far from conclusive and the study was done in guinea pig tissue rather than living beings. 

Research from 2001 suggested helicidine was effective in reducing the frequency and duration of cough episodes in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but a) that’s a different kettle of fish to the common cold and b) it was only carried out in a small number of patients, so the results can’t really be generalized. It’s perhaps unsurprising then, that a 2016 review found there was “no published clinical evidence to support helicidine’s action in acute cough or acute bronchitis.”

What can help

While we remain without a cure for the common cold, there are some tried and true recommendations for symptom relief that are much simpler than stocking up on alliums or cultivating snail mucus. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), these include getting plenty of rest and fluids, and taking painkillers if you need them.

Colds usually improve by themselves – which might also explain why some people think their weird remedies have worked, when really it’s just a coincidence – but if symptoms continue for more than 10 days, then the best thing to do is seek medical care.

All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.

The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.