Schoolgirl claims to have cure for hiccups

A US schoolgirl has set up her own business after claiming to have come up for a cure for hiccups.

Mallory Kievman, 13, combined her three favourite cures – sucking lollipops, eating spoonfuls of sugar and apple cider vinegar – into one solution, a lollipop coated in the substances, which supposedly stops hiccups.

She told the New York Times newspaper: "I'm still tweaking the taste. It triggers a set of nerves in your throat and mouth that are responsible for the hiccup reflex arc.

"It basically over-stimulates those nerves and cancels out the message to hiccup."

Mallory is now the owner of Hiccupops, which is preparing to launch the sweet commercially.