What dietary taboos should you pay attention to when you have bronchitis?

The core dietary taboos for bronchitis are to avoid foods that can irritate the airways, aggravate mucosal congestion, and increase phlegm secretion. There is no one-size-fits-all list of taboos that is universal across the Internet. All taboos must be adjusted based on your own physique, disease stage, and even allergic history. Don’t blindly believe in the online statement that “certain types of foods should never be touched.”

Last week, I treated a young man with acute bronchitis. He usually loves spicy food. He ate late-night snacks and ordered spicy crayfish for three consecutive days before the onset of the disease. When he went to the doctor, he coughed and covered his chest. He said that his throat hurt as if it had been sandpaper, and he also coughed up a lot of thick yellow phlegm. This is a typical example of eating spicy food, which "added fuel to the fire" to the already inflammatory airway mucosa. The disease, which was supposed to be cured in seven days, was delayed for almost two weeks.

Having said this, some people must want to ask, do all spicy foods need to be completely avoided? Not entirely. For example, the most quarrelsome question is "Can you eat cold food?" If you have a cold cough, and you cough up thin phlegm when you blow a little cold wind, and you are afraid of the cold, then you really shouldn't touch iced milk tea or iced watermelon. The cold stimulation will cause the airway to contract and spasm, making your cough worse. ； But if you have a hot cough, your mouth is usually dry and the phlegm you cough up is yellow and sticky. Eating pears and warm white fungus soup at normal temperature will make you feel better.

There is another misunderstanding that many people have encountered, that is, they think they need to take supplements when they are sick. Before the bronchitis is completely cured, they stew thick chicken soup, bone soup, or even add a bunch of Qi-tonifying herbs. I met a 5-year-old kid before, and his bronchitis was almost gone. My grandma felt sorry for him because he had lost weight, so she made a pot of stew. The child drank two large bowls of oily old hen soup. He woke up coughing again that night and was still congested. When he came for a follow-up examination, he heard the sputum sound in his lungs became louder again - this kind of high-fat food will increase the secretion of phlegm, and the inflammation that was originally absorbed quickly will recur. It is really not worth the gain.

As for what is said on the Internet, "Seafood is fat and must not be eaten." In fact, it is quite controversial. I usually tell patients that as long as you are not allergic to eating shrimps, crabs, and marine fish, and steam them with less salt, eating some can supplement high-quality protein and help repair mucous membranes.； But if you are allergic to seafood, or if you feel your throat is itchy or your cough becomes worse after eating it, you must avoid it completely. After all, allergies can induce airway hyperresponsiveness and worsen symptoms.

When cooking, try to use less pepper, mustard, and heavy salt. Especially during an acute attack, the airway mucosa is originally swollen like a water-filled sponge. Adding these stimuli to it will make the cough more severe. Also, don’t be greedy for things that are too sweet. There used to be a little girl who had bronchitis and didn’t dare to eat spicy food, so she ordered fruit tea with 30% sugar every day. After drinking it for almost two weeks, she was still coughing. The sugar would make the phlegm sticky and difficult to spit out. It would block the airway and cause repeated irritation. Switching to warm boiled water or light tea would help a lot faster.

In fact, to put it bluntly, food taboos don’t need to be too extreme. As long as you don’t feel your cough is worse or have more phlegm after eating, you don’t dare to eat anything. After all, you can get better faster if you keep up with your nutrition, right?