Will drinking milk or soy milk when you have a cold cause phlegm and throat blockage? Nutritionist Lin Shihang said...

I wonder if you have had such experience? After drinking milk, I feel a little blocked in my throat, as if there is phlegm. Sometimes it is so serious that I have to swallow some saliva to smooth my throat? There is also a lot of information on the Internet saying that you should not drink milk when you have a cold to avoid making the condition worse. Is this true? Nutritionist Lin Shihang read some papers and will debunk the myths below!

Analysis 1: Is drinking milk causing phlegm a problem in traditional Chinese medicine?

I originally thought that the idea of ​​milk producing phlegm was a patent of Chinese medicine or academia. However, when I searched for keywords such as milk, dairy products, mucus, phlem, etc., I found that many well-known medical institutions were also discussing this issue, such as:

➤ Mayo clinic: Cold symptoms: Does drinking milk increase phlegm?

➤ Australian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy: Milk, Mucus and Cough

In addition to these articles, many people abroad have also asked and discussed why drinking milk causes phlegm? Many scholars are curious, is this really that common? As a result, some scholars really conducted a questionnaire to get to the bottom of the issue.

46% of people who drink whole milk think that they feel like they have phlegm after drinking it

25% of people who drink low-fat milk think that they feel like they have phlegm after drinking it

Not only drinking milk, 11% of the people in this study also said that they also felt phlegm after drinking soy milk. In an irresponsible survey conducted on the Haoshike fan page, about 60% of fans said that they seemed to have phlegm after drinking milk.

So many people have mentioned that drinking milk can cause phlegm. Does milk really have this problem?

The answer is: drinking milk will not cause phlegm!

Many scholars are curious about why people feel that their phlegm becomes heavier after drinking milk, so they have conducted a lot of research to explore this issue, the earliest of which can be traced back to 1948!

In a 1948 study (link), researchers asked 200 patients whether drinking milk made them phlegm-prone. 25% of them said they did.

The scholars then divided the 647 patients into three groups according to their weekly milk intake. The highest intake reached more than 10 glass jars. Those who drank more milk did not show any problem with more phlegm.

Another study was even more challenging (link). In this study, researchers infected 60 subjects with rhinovirus-2 and then collected data on their milk intake, symptom descriptions, and weight of nasal mucus blown out over a 10-day period.

In this study, 50% of the people believed that dairy products are not conducive to the recovery of colds, and 80% believed that milk will cause an increase in sputum and mucus. However, scholars did not find any correlation between the amount of mucus and respiratory symptoms and milk/dairy products.

Since there is no correlation, why do so many people feel that they have phlegm?

Why does drinking milk or soy milk cause phlegm? Nutritionist Lin Shihang said that it turns out that the mucin in our saliva is to blame! Milk is an emulsion and a colloidal solution, and soy milk has the same meaning.

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Analysis 2: Why does drinking milk or soy milk cause phlegm?

Nutritionist Lin Shihang said that it turns out that the mucin in our saliva is to blame! Milk is an emulsion and a colloidal solution, and soy milk has the same meaning.

When we drink milk or soy milk, the mucin in saliva will quickly cause the milk droplets to "flocculate", which will increase the viscosity and volume of the milk. When we swallow a mixture of milk and saliva, we feel a sticky sensation.

The mixture remaining in the mouth will also make us feel that the oral mucosa seems "thick", but this feeling varies from person to person, and not everyone is so sensitive.

Some scholars also speculate that the calcium in milk may inhibit the hydration of mucin on the respiratory mucosa, thereby reducing the water content of mucus and making the mucus thicker.

However, some scholars believe that since milk is consumed quickly, this reaction will not occur so quickly.

However, some scholars believe that it may be related to a specific protein in milk (β-casomorphin-7), which stimulates the expression of genes (MUC5AC) related to mucus secretion. However, this phenomenon was found in the cells of the large intestine and is very different from the condition of the respiratory tract, so it is probably not the reason for the phlegm.

Conclusion

In short, based on current scientific evidence, drinking milk will not cause phlegm. It is simply a temporary feeling. There is no need to worry that drinking milk when you have a cold will aggravate your throat problems!