Best Diet for Chronic Bronchitis
Chronic bronchitis is a form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
(COPD) that involves a cough that lasts for three months or more per
year for two years.
It is often blamed on smoking, but a new study published in BMC Public
Health wanted to know whether diet had anything to do with it.
In addition, the results were shocking. Not only did they find that diet
was influential, they found that eating right reduces people’s risk of
bronchitis by a shocking 92%.
The researchers used the Healthy Eating Index 2010 (HEI-2010) as a
reference.
The study method was meticulous and well structured. The scientist’s
recruited 84 people diagnosed with COPD and compared them with 252
healthy individuals. The researchers assessed their diet, smoking habits,
and physical activity levels using questionnaires.
The Healthy Eating Index 2010 (HEI-2010) score, a tool used to gauge
diet quality, ranges from zero to 120. A score of zero represents a poor
diet, whereas 120 signify a diet that aligns perfectly with the HEI-2010
dietary guidelines.
They then used statistical tools to analyze the relationship between
their subjects’ HEI-2010 scores and the odds of developing COPD.
These were the precise findings:
1. Individuals with higher HEI-2010 scores were 66% less likely to
have COPD when compared with those with low HEI-2010 scores.
2. People with the highest HEI score were 82% less likely to have
COPD.
3. Even after they excluded the effects of body mass index, people
with higher HEI-2010 scores had a staggering 92% reduced
likelihood of having COPD.
Therefore, a higher quality diet is associated with a considerably lower
chance of developing COPD, including chronic bronchitis.
It is therefore safe to conclude that chronic bronchitis is mostly
preventable via sensible eating.
So, what exactly is the HEI-2010?
The Healthy Eating Index 2010 is a tool developed by the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) to measure diet quality and assess
how well the foods a person eats aligns with the Dietary Guidelines for
Americans.
The foods that score highly are fruit (excluding juice), vegetables, green
vegetables, legumes, soy products, whole grains, low-fat dairy, nuts,
seeds, poultry, seafood, lean meat, and higher intake of unsaturated
fats compared with saturated varieties.
The foods that detract from your score are refined grains, salt,
saturated fats, solid fats, alcohol, added sugars, and other empty
calories.
If you look at the impressive length of the recommended list compared
with the shortness of the non-recommended list, it should not be too
difficult to enjoy a diet that protects you from COPD and chronic
bronchitis.
If you already suffer from bronchitis, it takes a little more effort to
cure it. Fortunately, thousands of readers have completely rid
themselves of bronchitis using the simple diet and lifestyle changes
explained here…
