Diet taboos for nourishing the lungs

The first is to blindly follow the trend of eating Internet celebrity "lung-nourishing foods" regardless of one's own constitution; the second is to overeat taboos, which leads to unbalanced nutritional intake and weakens immunity; the third is to copy other people's lung-nourishing recipes and completely ignore the requirements of one's own allergens and underlying diseases.

I just treated a 62-year-old aunt a while ago. She posted a short video saying that steamed Sydney pears are a great tool for moisturizing the lungs. She ate one each morning and evening for half a month. Initially, she only coughed occasionally when the season changed. In the end, she couldn't sleep all night and had diarrhea for a week. When I came here for a checkup, I found out that she has a typical constitution of deficiency and coldness in the spleen and stomach. She usually feels uncomfortable in the stomach when she encounters something cold. Sydney pears are cold in nature. If she eats too much, she will produce dampness and phlegm. The dampness will travel up to the lungs, but the more she eats, the worse her cough becomes. Some people may say, I see Chinese medicine and it is true that Sydney moisturizes the lungs? Yes, for people with hot constitutions who usually fall in love with fire, have dry stools, and cough yellow phlegm, steamed Sydney can indeed relieve discomfort, but putting it on people with weak and cold constitutions will make things worse. This is also the core reason why many people feel that the taboo on nourishing the lungs is contradictory: many statements do not take into account individual physical differences at all. The judgment logic of Western medicine is more straightforward: no matter what you eat, as long as it does not induce airway spasm, increase sputum secretion, or cause allergies, you can eat it without so many twists and turns.

Oh, by the way, many people are following the trend and stocking up on so-called "spiritual nourishing products" such as Qiuli paste, loquat paste, and bird's nest. Last month, I met a girl in her 20s. In order to prevent coughs during the change of seasons, she drank three large cups of Qiuli paste every day. After drinking it for almost two months, the coughing did not stop, and her fasting blood sugar level was almost at the critical value during the physical examination. If you look at the finished Qiuli ointment sold in the market, most of them add a lot of rock sugar and honey to adjust the taste. High sugar will increase the viscosity of sputum, but it will block the airway and make it difficult to cough out. If you really want to moisturize it, it is better to drink a few sips of warm water.

Speaking of dietary taboos, the most exaggerated thing I have ever seen is an old COPD patient in Chongqing. He heard people say that spicy food should not be used to nourish the lungs, so he gave up the hot pot noodles he had eaten for half his life. He even picked out the peppercorns in the dishes. In half a year, he lost 8 pounds, and his lung function was much lower than before when he was checked again. Later, I told him that as long as he didn’t choke or have a stinging throat after eating spicy food, there was no need to avoid it completely. He gradually resumed eating mildly spicy food, gained an appetite, gained back his weight, had fewer colds, and his lung function had remained stable for 3 years without much fluctuation. There is no unified conclusion as to whether spicy food is a natural enemy of the lungs: Traditional Chinese medicine believes that spicy food consumes qi, and people with lung qi deficiency should eat less. However, modern nutritional research has also found that a small amount of capsaicin can reduce the airway inflammatory response, and has a positive effect on some patients with COPD and asthma. The core is never the "spicy" itself, but whether you feel comfortable after eating it.

There is also a widely circulated misunderstanding, saying that to nourish the lungs, you should avoid "fatty things", such as milk, eggs, and seafood. A mother of a child with asthma had to give up egg and milk for half a year. In the end, the child was half a head shorter than his peers and had frequent asthma attacks. When he came to check the allergens, he found that the child was only allergic to dust mites and not to egg and milk at all. Later, he added egg and milk back, and the child's physical condition gradually improved, and he has not had any illnesses for half a year. For people with underlying lung diseases, high-quality protein is the core nutrient for repairing respiratory mucosa and maintaining immunity. As long as you are not allergic, eggs, milk, fish and poultry are all good things. There is really no need to go hungry for unwarranted "fat" claims.

Really, I have been practicing clinical respiratory medicine for almost 10 years. I have seen too many people put shackles on themselves when it comes to food. They will avoid this and that. In the end, they will not eat happily, and their immunity will become lower and lower, making them more likely to suffer from lung diseases. To put it bluntly, there are so many things to pay attention to in nourishing your lungs. Smoking less, inhaling second-hand smoke, and wearing a mask when going out in hazy weather are 100 times more effective than picking at your food. You really don’t need to remember so many miscellaneous taboos when it comes to diet, just stick to two criteria: First, if you have an itchy throat, choking, or excessive phlegm after eating, stop if you feel it; if not, eat normally. ； Second, if you have underlying diseases or are unsure, it’s better to ask a doctor than to blindly ponder health advice, right?