Sunday, March 18, 2012

Cough! Cough! What do to?

Ever wonder why your cough is not recovering as you would expected? Have you been coughing for weeks? Or do you tend to have 'cough' symptoms regularly? Will 'medications' prescribed by doctors fix your chronic long term coughing symptom? Do you have any idea what those 'cough syrup' does to your body? Well, perhaps it is something else which is causing the inability to recover for your coughing condition.

The truth is, there are several causes of long term reoccurring chronic cough. For most people, first reaction to fix the coughing dilemma, is to consult conventional doctors, and usually been given cough syrup, antibiotics or similar drugs. Has anyone heard of H.Pylori? How about Vitamin B12 deficiency?

H. pylori bacteria, the actual cause of most cases of peptic ulcers and GERD in America, may be associated with vitamin B12 deficiency and could be the underlying cause for your cough in the first place. Studies have shown that removal of the H. pylori bacteria from the stomach increases absorption of B12.  This bacteria appears to interfere with your stomach's parietal cell's production of intrinsic factor, which is essential to getting the B12 your body needs out of the foods you eat.

In fact, without intrinsic factor, which diminishes as you age, it's virtually impossible to get B12 from your diet.  This also means the older you get, the more likely you will need to supplement B12. So, if you suffer from a mystery cough, you may actually be suffering from a bacterial infection in your stomach that is causing both chronic deficient B12 levels (the stomach needs normal levels of hydrochloric acid to absorb B12 and H. pylori restricts stomach acid production) and possibly GERD related asthma symptoms. The first step to removing this cough from your life will be to remove the underlying causes of both GERD and poor B12 absorption: You need to get rid of your H. pylori infection.

Contrary to what the pharmaceutical industry wants you to believe, the class of drugs including H2-receptor antagonists like Zantac and Tagamet, and proton pump inhibitors like Nexium and Prilosec, are the last thing you want to put into your body to deal with GERD and poor digestion.

These drugs will further shut down your stomach's production of stomach acid, which will further inhibit your ability to process nutrients like B12 from your food that your body needs. Besides, the cause of GERD is not caused by excess production stomach acid, it's caused by not enough production of stomach acid. GERD begins to show up in your 30's and early 40's, when production of stomach acid naturally begins to diminish with age.

So, don't believe the myth the drug companies want you to believe about the source of your stomach ailments, it's not an overproduction of stomach acid!  Most likely it's the H. pylori bacteria, which is treated with probiotics. That's right, not antibiotics. Probiotics, which naturally compete for space with the infectious bacteria and drive it right out of your stomach once healthy levels return to your intestinal flora.  Be sure when purchasing a source of probiotics to insist on only the highest quality available.

If H. plylori turns out not to be the source of your GERD, you probably need to start supplementing immediately with Betaine HCL to increase the acid in your stomach.  Consult a holistic doctor who will advise you on the appropriate dose and duration of this form of treatment. In Malaysia, it is quite difficult to find a good hollistic doctor or practitioner.

Now, you must be asking, what causes Vitamin B12 deficiency? Well, some of the causes are coffee, gastric bypass surgery, exposure to nitric oxide, specific Diabetes Type II drugs, etc. The reason your body needs intrinsic factor is because vitamin B12 is a very large molecule. It is actually the largest vitamin discovered thus far, and the way it gets absorbed into your body is by far the most complex. Intrinsic factor is a molecule protein made by your stomach. It grabs onto the B12 molecule and together they move through your stomach to your small intestine. When they reach the end of your small intestine, the intrinsic factor is absorbed first, pulling the B12 with it into the cells of your large intestine, where they are absorbed for use by the rest of your body.

Since the only way vitamin B12 can be absorbed into your system is through bonding with intrinsic factor molecules, which naturally decline as you age and also in response to an H. pylori infection, it's now easier to understand why so many people are not getting adequate B12 into their bodies.

Meanwhile, how do you know if you have Vitamin B12 defficiency? Some of the symptoms are fatigue, lack of energy, muscle weakness, mental fogginess or some people call it 'brain fog', memory problems (cognitive), trouble sleeping, mood swings, lack of motivation, etc. There are also long term chronic Vitamin B12 defficiency symptoms which includes depression, anemia, dementia, neurological conditions, infertility and heart disease as well.

Finally, what are the sources of Vitamin B12 you can get? Well, for vegans or vegetarians, I'm sorry. The only   availability of its natural form is in animal based foods. These include seafood, beef, chicken, pork, milk, eggs. Well, still can't recover from your irritating cough? Maybe it's time to check for H.pylori infection and defficiency in B12, instead of taking drugs given by doctors. Good luck.








P/S: Taking strepsils or any other similar 'throat pills' WILL not fix your cough dilemma. You are just ingesting more sugar and dangerous artificial sweeteners and colorings.



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