By: Cat Ebeling, RN, MSN-PHN, co-author of the best-sellers:  The Fat Burning Kitchen, The Top 101 Foods that Fight Aging & The Diabetes Fix

It’s called, “phlegm,” “mucus,” “snot,” “loogies,” or even “boogers,” and some of us have more than others. We sniff, snort, clear our throats, cough, and spit it out. And it can be pretty gross.

We all have about 1 to 1.5 liters of it that pass through our system every day, and some of us have more mucus than others. It can be thick, green, yellow, brown, or clear and thin. It’s all mucus and it serves some vital functions in the body.

What is this slimy stuff?

Mucus is a lubricating, protective substance made mostly of water and a gel-forming molecule called mucin. Mucus lines the nose, sinuses, the eyes, the mouth, the digestive system, the vagina and more.

Mucus serves to protect the sensitive areas, remove dirt, pollen, and other pathogens, and keep tissues moist. Mucus also lubricates organs and cavities in the body, allowing you to move freely without things sticking to each other. Ouch!

Some of the cells in these areas of your body release a mixture of proteins, salts, fats, and immune molecules, and other cells covered with tiny hair-like projections called ‘cilia’ sweep the mucus along. Sort of like automatic house cleaning in your body.

We tend to notice the mucus in our nasal passages and throat the most because this is the stuff that catches dirt, dust, pollen, and pathogens and gets thick and gooey. Sometimes it can run down your throat, causing you to have to clear your throat often.

Phlegm is also mucus that ends up down in your lungs due to breathing irritating air, having a cold or lower respiratory infection or pollen that you breathe in. Phlegm helps you cough up some of those things you’ve inhaled.

Phlegm also happens when you are sick, and a virus gets down in your lower respiratory passages. This irritating virus and the resulting immune reaction cause thick mucus to deposit in your bronchial tubes and lungs. Result— you cough up, thick chunks of yellow, green, or brown mucus, called phlegm.

Our bodies make mucus all the time, but we only tend to notice it when it’s excessive and thick. In fact, your body normally produces about 1 to 1.5 liters of mucus a day.

What causes excess mucus?

• Dairy products, especially conventional dairy
• Inflammation from grains, i.e., gluten
• Nightshade sensitivity
• Vegetable seed oils, like sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, soybean, corn, canola, etc.
• Colds, flu, covid, and other respiratory infections
• Inhaling smoke, dust, animal dander, mold spores, and air pollution
• Certain medications, like birth control pills, or blood pressure medications
• Pregnancy
• Acid reflux
• Smoking
• Asthma
• Cystic fibrosis
• COPD
• Dehydration
• Alcohol
• Excess inflammation, anywhere in the body

Stop the constant drip, drip, drip…

Many people have ongoing mucus issues and don’t understand the cause—nor understand that it can be eliminated. But you can reduce and/or eliminate this annoying goo.

There are a variety of ways to reduce or thin your mucus secretions, both naturally and medically. Let’s dig in…

1. Diet

Diet is the biggest factor in causing excess mucus secretions, and this can vary from person to person. However, there are a few foods that create more mucus for most people.

These include conventional, processed dairy, which can be a big issue, especially if you tend to have an allergy or sensitivity to dairy. Dairy can cause everything from stuffy nose, to blocked sinuses, and even coughing up phlegm. Switching to raw dairy, or even A2 type of dairy can eliminate this mucus clogging food.

Other foods that contribute to mucus include all grains, especially gluten, corn, and soy. Processed, refined grains are the worst for mucus production. Grains are highly inflammatory to the entire body, and this causes excess production of mucus.

An often-overlooked food that causes excess mucus are nightshades. Many people are sensitive to one or more of these foods, and don’t even know it. You don’t have to have a dramatic reaction to these foods. In fact, the mucus production may be the only reaction you notice. Nightshades include white potatoes, all varieties of peppers, tomatoes (often canned or cooked ones are more of a problem), eggplant, okra, and even goji berries.

Other foods that can cause excess mucus are certain fruits and vegetables like leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables. While you wouldn’t think of these foods as causing inflammation, for many, these foods can inflame the digestive system, creating more mucus or phlegm. Examples of fruits or vegetables that increase mucus include spinach, kale, cabbage, bananas, and potatoes.

One of the worst offenders for causing mucus and inflammation includes vegetable seed oils such as sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, corn, canola, soybean, grapeseed, or just ‘vegetable oil’. These oils are known to be highly inflammatory to the body and the lungs. Many people who have asthma report increased inflammation and difficulties breathing when ingesting vegetable oils.

Refined cane sugar can really exacerbate inflammation as well as mucus production. On top of that, sugar can totally knock out or reduce your immune system responses to viral and bacterial infections. Lowered immune function results in catching more colds, flu, and bacterial infections—all of which cause increased mucus and phlegm.

Alcoholic beverages—especially beer and wine can increase mucus production as well. Because alcohol inflames the digestive tract, this causes excess mucus to be produced. The worst alcoholic beverages for mucus and phlegm are dark beers and red wine. Both contain high quantities of yeasts and molds, along with histamines that create a stuffy nose and sinuses.

2. Irritating Allergens in Your Environment

This may be easier said than done, but when pollen, dust, animal dander or other allergens are floating around in the air, it’s best to reduce your exposure. If it’s pollen from plants and trees that bothers you, spending time indoors with air conditioning or an air filter may be best. If it’s indoor allergens, vacuuming and dusting frequently may help.

One thing that makes a huge difference during allergy season, is eliminating any foods that increase inflammation and mucus. I personally have found that avoiding eating any grains or sugar, as well as certain nightshades makes a huge difference in my reaction to other environmental allergens. So, before you lock up the dog and lock yourself inside, make some healthy tweaks to your diet, and you may find that your runny nose, cough, and watery eyes disappear during allergy season if you are avoiding inflammatory foods.

Another helpful practice is to use a Neti pot during allergy ‘season’ or when exposed to allergens in the air. It can wash out the irritating substances and reduce the mucus in your nasal and sinus pathways.

3. Medication

Conventional medical doctors will want you to try taking decongestants, antihistamines, and nasal sprays. However, I am not a big believer in these remedies as they often have unwanted side effects (no surprise here).

Decongestants–Common decongestants can be effective but also are extremely drying to your body and can cause dehydration, since they work systemically. Decongestants even dry out your eyes and make them feel irritated and scratchy.

Decongestants have a common side effect of making you feel jittery and anxious—kind of like having too much caffeine. While feeling this way is not fun at any time of the day, feeling jittery at night can wreck a good night’s sleep. Decongestants also constrict blood vessels, causing a possibly dangerous increase in blood pressure.

Antihistamines–On the other hand, antihistamines can not only be very drying, but they have the added side effect of making you feel extremely groggy and drowsy. While you may have less mucus, you may not even be able to function with these medications.

Nasal Sprays–The three most often used types of nasal sprays are steroid, antihistamine, and decongestant. While nasal sprays can temporarily clear your nose, you can actually become physically addicted to them—very quickly.

Nasal sprays have a ‘rebound’ effect, and while they can constrict the blood vessels in the nose, helping to shrink your nasal tissues and helping you breathe easy, once they wear off, breathing and mucus production will be worse. Nasal sprays, like decongestants, can also dangerously raise blood pressure, so beware. A saline nasal spray may be the best option to thin mucus.

Expectorants–Expectorants can help to loosen and break up phlegm in the chest, helping you cough up and clear out your bronchial tubes and lungs. Conventional medical expectorants can encourage a cough, while other cough suppressant medicines stop a tickling cough. Elderberry cough medicine, which is a natural-based cough medicine, uses elderberry extracts to help break up the phlegm for a more productive cough.

4. Natural Solutions

Besides dietary changes, there are a few effective treatments you can do to reduce the amount of mucus secretions and the viscosity (thickness).

Hydration—The simple act of drinking more water or fluids can help to thin out secretions. Since mucus is a body fluid, anything that helps to increase bodily fluids will help to thin mucus. Approximately 60% of the human body is water–plus or minus 15%. Losing only 3% of your weight in water can result in dehydration.

Neti pot—Neti pots help to clean allergens, dust, and animal dander out of the nose, while flushing out the sinuses. Neti pots clean the nasal passages with a salt and water solution and are easy to use. You can also purchase an over-the-counter saline nasal spray which basically works the same as a Neti pot.

Essential Oils—One of my favorite methods is to use essential oils to help clear the sinuses, and even the bronchial tubes and lungs. Eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil, lavender oil, tea tree oil, rosemary oil and oregano oil all work well to help reduce congestion and mucus. One of the best ways to use these oils is to put several drops into boiling or almost boiling water, lean over the pot and cover your head with a towel to trap in the essential oil and steam. Breathe deeply.

Natural Supplements—Anything derived of elderberries works well to break up and reduce mucus. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a popular lung supplement that has been found to help patients with advanced COPD by reducing phlegm and thinning mucus. Ginger—either fresh ginger, or in a capsule is also effective at reducing mucus. Bromelain and pancreatic enzymes are often recommended to reduce and thin out phlegm and mucus in the body.

Making the above changes in diet and lifestyle along with adding in the necessary natural supplements will help you reduce your production of mucus and stop that annoying urge to clear your throat or blow your nose.

References
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324570
https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2020/08/marvels-mucus-phlegm
https://www.respiratorytherapyzone.com/vegetable-oils-are-damaging-your-lungs/
https://www.healthline.com/health/cold-flu/how-to-get-rid-of-phlegm
https://ezyschooling.com/parenting/expert/five-foods-that-flush-out-mucus-from-the-body
https://www.everydayhealth.com/sinus-health-guide/sinus-congestion-and-mucus.aspx

The post Why do I Have So Much Mucus (Snot) appeared first on thenutritionwatchdog.com.

By: Cat Ebeling, RN, MSN-PHN, co-author of the best-sellers:  The Fat Burning Kitchen, The Top 101 Foods that Fight Aging & The Diabetes Fix

What if you were unintentionally drinking multiple medications in your glass of water? Medications such as blood pressure medicine, diabetes medicine, epilepsy medication, birth control pills and antibiotics. All of these have been found in drinking water samples in multiple cities and towns across the U.S. as well as the rest of the world in significant quantities.

Pharmaceuticals can get into water supplies via human excretion or drugs being flushed down the toilet. Runoff and waste from pharmaceutical plants and huge animal feedlots also get washed (or dumped) into rivers and water supplies. While most people would think wastewater treatment plants would get the medications and other sneaky chemicals out of the water supply, many of these, including pharmaceuticals, can easily pass through water treatment systems undetected.

A very recent new study published in Science Daily looked at pharmaceuticals in the rivers of the world, and found potentially toxic levels in almost every area covered in the research!

This study looked at 258 rivers around the world, including rivers that run through major cities such as the Thames in London and the Amazon in Brazil. According to Science Daily’s report, 61 different pharmaceuticals were measured including:

• Carbamazepeine (an anti-epileptic medication)
• Metformin (commonly used for diabetes treatments)
• Propranolol (a beta-blocker for high blood pressure)
• Sulfamethoxazole (an antibiotic)
• Ciprofloxacin (an antibiotic)
• Loratadine (an antihistamine for allergies)
• Caffeine
• Sex hormones (birth control pill)

This study forms a portion of the University of York-led Global Monitoring of Pharmaceuticals Project with the new study becoming one of the first world-wide investigation of medicinal contamination in the environment.

Some of the shocking findings of this latest study (as summarized in Science Daily) include:

• The fact that pharmaceutical pollution is contaminating water on every continent.
• A significant correlation exists between the socioeconomic status of the population and higher levels of pollution. In other words, lower-level income status = higher levels of medication pollution.
• Higher levels of pollution were also associated with higher median age groups, higher rates of unemployment, and higher poverty.
• Most polluted countries and regions of the world are the areas that have been studied the least—including sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and southern Asia.

Big Pharma is in Your Nearby Rivers

Cities around the world use rivers for water sources. Unfortunately, those same rivers are often used as dumping grounds as well. The high levels of pharmaceutical pollution in some areas are attributed to the dumping of trash and medical rubbish along riverbanks, inadequate wastewater disposal, and the existence of pharmaceutical companies operating in nearby areas, dumping their waste straight into the water supply.

In a 2004 to 2009 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study, scientists found that pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities can be a significant source of pharmaceuticals in the environment—especially the water supply. This study shows that liquid waste from these two wastewater treatment plants picked up discharge from nearby pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, and had up to 1,000 times higher concentrations of pharmaceuticals than 24 other wastewater treatment plants across the nation—not near pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities.

Farm Runoff

Pharmaceutical companies are not the only source of pharmaceuticals in your water system. As you may already know, massive amounts of antibiotics and other drugs are used in the livestock industry. Runoff from animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) end up in ground water, streams, and nearby rivers as well. Other pharmaceuticals besides antibiotics including acetaminophen, caffeine, nicotine byproducts, antihistamines, and tranquilizers have also been found in the water as well.

Are You Taking Your Neighbor’s Medication?

Another huge source of pharmaceuticals in the water just happens to be large populations. Any drugs that don’t fully get metabolized in someone’s body will end up in wastewater systems. And unfortunately, these drugs can be detected miles downstream from wastewater-treatment plants, simply because many of these plants just cannot remove the pharmaceuticals from the water.

There are plenty of cities in the U.S. that pump their drinking water directly out of the local rivers in the area, and then purify the water for drinking. The degree to which pharmaceuticals get cleaned out of the drinking water varies greatly across the U.S., but for many cities, a plethora of pharmaceuticals is floating around in your glass of drinking water.

Take Southern California for example, about half of all the drinking water is supplied by the Colorado River. The water from the Colorado River that Southern California is drinking just happens to be downstream of Las Vegas where there are a good number of pharmaceuticals are flushed into the water supply. Southern California also happens to be downstream of several large cattle feedlots and grazing lands that are across the Southwest U.S. These pharmaceuticals just cannot be filtered out of the water.

This same international study shows Dallas, Texas as a “hot spot” with cumulative concentrations of 10,000 nanograms/liter (parts per trillion) of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) showing up in the water system. Las Vegas comes in just behind Dallas at ~5,000 nanograms/liter of APIs.

And yet another study found a whopping 56 pharmaceuticals in the drinking water, in Philadelphia. Antibiotics like amoxicillin and doxycycline, pain killers like acetaminophen and prednisone, anti-seizure drugs like carbamazepine and phenytoin, and addictive substances like nicotine and caffeine, along with 48 others that were present in trace concentrations. Yet another 2008 investigation by the Associated Press found medications in the drinking water of over 40 million Americans.

How Pervasive is This Problem of Big Pharma in the Water?

Fourteen different pharmaceutical ingredients have been found in sampling sites in Antarctica, South America, North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. A pervasive problem, don’t you think? It’s very hard to get away from this.

The drugs included acetaminophen, beta blockers (which slow the heart rate and control blood pressure), epilepsy medication, antihistamines, antidepressants, antianxiety medication, and several antibiotics. Only two areas in the 258 samples were drug-free: Iceland and a small remote village in Venezuela.

In any case, sewage plants are just not designed to remove or treat pharmaceuticals, nor are they required to. So far, the EPA and other agencies have not set any kind of standards for the presence of pharmaceuticals in water, mostly because no one is sure what levels are safe or not. But tell me, do you want to be taking any extra medications? This cannot be healthy. Some of these medications, even in small doses can have the possibility of side effects or even addiction. The effects over time can be cumulative.

What About Fish and Other Organisms?

Research has also been done to discover if levels of drugs could cause adverse effects to organisms living in the rivers–or to humans who eat fish from rivers. Fish are studied to check levels of environmental pollution because of their capability to absorb pollutants from the water.

Researchers found high concentrations of antidepressants in the brains of fish from the Niagara River. Research by Cornell University found pharmaceuticals in the Hudson, and documented antibiotic resistant bacteria in the river, most likely originating with antibiotics that have found their way into sewage systems.

Psychoactive drugs such as antiepileptics and antidepressants, are the most prevalent types of medications that seem to show up in most all fish species. Many studies have reported biological alterations including reproductive, physiological, and behavioral alterations in the fish studied most likely caused by these compounds in the water.

Bottom Line

Besides big Pharma residue, you may be drinking a host of other scary chemicals in your water. These chemicals along with the medication residue may or may not be causing long term health issues—but no one really knows because it is not really being studied as of now. The question is—are you comfortable drinking pharmaceutical and chemical leftovers in your water?

I know, I am not. My best advice is to invest in a high-quality reverse osmosis system or a Berkey water filtration system if you like to drink tap water—especially if you are on a city water system that feeds from nearby rivers and streams. And be very, very wary if you happen to live near any type of pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. You may never know exactly what you are drinking or the long-term effects it has on your health.

References
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/chd-tv-rfk-podcast-gary-wockner-drinking-water-polluted-big-pharma/?fbclid=IwAR1aVfPGX1FGve5asjKSraaHWzmepJkN2ipMd4VHr0BD0qjKxRYvNRM6e6c
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/02/19/high-levels-of-drugs-found-dissolved-in-many-parts-of-hudson-river/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220214121254.htm
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pharmaceuticals-water
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=4420942&page=1
https://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/3108
https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/clean-water/pharmaceuticals-personal-care/

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