Foods To Avoid With Cold Sores - Treatment and Prevention
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.
Here is how they work.
Cold sore events occur because of the replication process of herpes simplex virus (type 1 and 2). This is a sub-microscopic virus that creates more virus by forcing your cells to become herpes factories. When the cell becomes full of new virus, it is destroyed to release them. This causes the cold sore ulcer.
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.
Lysine and arginine compete for the same storage space. The cell cannot create new virus using lysine.
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.
Whenever your cells have a higher lysine than arginine content, it discourages creation of new virus. This often sends the herpes virus back into a latent state. You will not get a cold sore if the cells cannot create virus.
Here are some common foods to avoid with cold sores. These foods are known to contain high levels of arginine.
---- Anything that contains chocolate
---- Nuts
---- Most seeds such as sunflower, pumpkin and sesame
---- Shellfish including clams and oysters
---- Most cereal grains including wheat
---- Many fruits and berries including grapes, grapefruit and oranges
---- Most vegetables are neutral but avoid rutabagas, winter squash and pumpkins, broccoli, carrots and corn
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.
Keep your immune system strong by not avoiding these foods for more than a couple weeks. This avoidance program works as a treatment for a current cold sore. It is not healthy for a prevention program. If your immune system weakens, you could end up with more, not less, outbreaks.
A better solution would be to increase your lysine intake during a cold sore event. This often stops a cold sore fast. This is also a very good way to prevent future cold sores.
Here are some high lysine foods that are good any time you have a cold sore. They are especially good for balancing out some of the foods to avoid with cold sores.
Beef, fish (especially flounder), chicken, cheese, eggs, yogurt, apples, pears, mangos, apricots, and summer squash. Your goal should be a diet that provides about twice as much lysine as arginine.
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!
The best solution, for your convenience and good health, might be taking an additional lysine supplement. It generally comes in 500 mg. capsules and is available nearly anywhere vitamins are sold. Many folks take six to eight of these capsules a day during a cold sore and one or two capsules daily to prevent cold sores.
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.
Do not give up the foods you love - especially chocolate. Eat additional high lysine food or take lysine capsules. This will cancel out the bad effects of the foods to avoid with cold sores.
Denny Bodoh knows cold sores. Dont you spend another dime on COLD SORES, before you read this collection of free cold sore reports and discover a few incredible COLD SORE treatment and remedy options.
