What Are The Most Important Foods To Avoid With Cold Sores?
Denny Bodoh
Foods to avoid with cold sores are foods that are high in arginine and low in lysine. Get to know these specific foods and you will be amazed how quickly cold sores disappear.
Perhaps you have heard - arginine and lysine are two amino acids (protein fractions) found in foods that have a significant effect on cold sores.
These amino acids work like this.
The herpes simplex virus is the root cause of all cold sores. A virus particle will enter a nerve cell at the surface and force it to create new virus. It will then explode the cell to release the cloned virus thus creating a huge open wound.
Arginine is a protein fraction that is essential in the production of new herpes virus. Your nerve cells have a storage area within the cell specifically for arginine.
The same receptors are used to store lysine. Lysine is a protein that cannot be used to create new virus.
When you consume high levels of lysine, the lysine will take the place of some of the arginine. This creates a situation where the cell cannot support the production of new herpes virus because of low arginine levels.
A high lysine content in your cells often causes the herpes virus to give up and return to hibernation. You have just prevented a cold sore. Quite often you won't even know it.
Here are some common foods to avoid with cold sores. These foods are known to contain high levels of arginine.
---- Chocolate (ouch)
---- Nuts such as almonds, walnuts, pecans, peanuts
---- Seeds
---- Shell type seafood such as oysters and crab
---- Grains such as wheat and oats
---- Fruits such as grapes, oranges, tangerines
---- Many vegetables are ok, however onions, peas, brussel sprouts, and squash are high in arginine.
Sometimes certain foods are difficult to avoid or should not be avoided. Many of the foods to avoid with cold sores are highly nutritional and essential for your good health. These foods could be removed from your diet for a week or so - during the actual cold sore event - without harm.
However, for optimal health, you should not avoid these foods for any length of time. Do not use avoidance of these foods as a method to prevent cold sores. To do so could weaken your immune system. This could actually cause more cold sores, rather than less.
An excellent alternative solution to avoiding foods you love is to increase your lysine during your cold sore event. Increasing intake of lysine will also help prevent future cold sores.
The following foods are higher in lysine and can be used to balance out the high arginine foods to avoid with cold sores - especially during the outbreak.
All dairy products are rich in lysine, such as cheeses, yogurt, and whole milk. Other lysine rich foods include chicken, beef, beets, apricots, figs, avocado, apples and soybeans. Fish is a particularly good source of lysine, especially flounder.
OK - I know keeping to a special diet is not fun. Most people, like myself, drop it quickly. Truth is, I have not followed these diet restrictions very well at all. I love chocolate too much!
For a large number of people, an easy and powerful alternative to this restricted diet is to take lysine as a supplement. Lysine is available anywhere you find vitamins. It is normally found in 500 mg. capsules. Taking four to eight capsules daily during a cold sore and one to two capsules daily between cold sores is common.
Is lysine safe to take in large quantity?
Lysine is perfectly safe. Eight capsules daily is only 4000 mg., or 4 grams. No bad side effects have ever been noted. You often exceed this just by eating food alone. A four-ounce serving of flounder, for example, will provide the equivalent of 4 to 5 grams of lysine. The capsules are just more convenient.
That's right - you do not have to give up chocolate. Increasing your lysine intake with high-lysine foods or supplements will often cancel out the effects of the arginine foods to avoid with cold sores.
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