As cold and flu season continues, the UNMC chicken soup study story still is going strong in the news. But did you know the UNMC chicken soup study story is reaching people … in Poland?
Stephen Rennard, MD, professor of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine, and his co-investigator, wife Barbara Rennard, were recently featured in Newsweek Polska for their scientific research showing that mom was, of course, right. Chicken soup really can help you feel better when you are sick.
In case you are just joining us, Dr. Rennard is a world-renowned COPD researcher. But he is far more world renowned for his study on chicken soup.
The story has been in the news again and again, and now in Polish.
Now-retired UNMC media relations expert Vicky Cerino, who shepherded the chicken soup story over the past two decades, once estimated the publicity this study has brought the med center was worth “perhaps several million” dollars.
Dr. Rennard went into the lab, using his wife’s grandmother’s magical chicken soup recipe, to test a hypothesis. He published the results in a peer-reviewed journal in 2000. The study has been cited by the media nonstop ever since. Twenty-three years later, it’s still in newspapers, magazines, websites, broadcasts and podcasts, all over the world.
As the Polish story shows us, there is an international language. And that language is chicken soup.
That’s why this story endures. Of course, a researcher discovering that there’s a scientific basis behind mom’s favorite home remedy is quirky and fun. But it’s more than that.
Logically, it’s about inhibiting neutrophil migration and an anti-inflammatory effect that can lead to mitigation of symptomatic upper respiratory tract infections.
But it also is about the memory of a mother or grandmother (or father or grandfather) bringing us something hot, so we feel better when we are sick. This story is about safety. It is about comfort. It is about love.
We used to try to keep track of how many times Dr. Rennard and the chicken soup study have been mentioned in the news. But after 23 years, we can no longer keep up.
It would be like trying to count the stars in the sky.
It would be like trying to measure a grandmother’s love.
Nice tribute, Kalani, to the story that never stops giving. Dr. Rennard deserves to take a bow.
Thanks Tom. However, Kalani deserves the bow. His commentary was in good taste, perfectly seasoned and got to the essence. Thanks and congratulations, Kalani.