Q: In all the time I’ve read your column, I haven’t seen pineapple juice mentioned as a cure for hiccups. It works with one sip!
A: People use a huge number of remedies for hiccups, ranging from eating an olive to sipping pickle juice or sucking on a lemon wedge with Angostura bitters sprinkled on it. We suspect that these approaches may work by activating transient receptor potential (TRP) channels in nerves.
Hiccups are triggered by a misfiring of the vagus nerve which causes an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm. Activating TRP channels might reverse this. We have not seen any studies of whether or how pineapple juice might affect these channels.
– By Joe and Teresa Graedon
– Copyright The Seattle Times