Foods To Avoid With Cold Sores For 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.

These amino acids work like this.

The herpes simplex virus is the root cause of all cold sores. A virus particle will enter a nerve cell at the surface and force it to create new virus. It will then explode the cell to release the cloned virus thus creating a huge open wound.

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.

Your cells store lysine in the same area. New virus cannot be created using lysine.

The more lysine in your diet the less arginine will be available in your cells to create new virus. The "parent" virus will sense this immediately and avoid those cells with low arginine content.

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 such as almonds, walnuts, pecans, peanuts

---- Flax, sesame and most other seeds

---- Any seafood that has a shell such as shrimp and oysters

---- Most cereal grains including wheat

---- Many fruits and berries including grapes, grapefruit and oranges

---- Some vegetables to avoid are carrots, broccoli, onions, squash, rutabaga and peas.

Avoiding certain foods can be hard. Some foods above are very important for your health needs. They are considered nutrient dense essential foods. Quite likely you could go a week or so without them during the outbreak 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.

Better than avoiding good foods, you can increase your consumption of lysine during the cold sore period. This is useful to heal a cold sore quickly and prevent new sores.

Here are some foods that are high in lysine and low in arginine. These foods will help balance the intake of some of the avoidance foods.

All dairy products are rich in lysine, such as cheeses, yogurt, and whole milk. Other lysine rich foods include chicken, beef, beets, apricots, figs, avocado, apples and soybeans. Fish is a particularly good source of lysine, especially flounder.

Yes, I realize following a restricted diet is difficult for most people. Also, dairy products may be rich in lysine but cannot be tolerated by some folks. Fact is, I have not followed these avoidance guidelines very good myself.

For a large number of people, an easy and powerful alternative to this restricted diet is to take lysine as a supplement. Lysine is available anywhere you find vitamins. It is normally found in 500 mg. capsules. Taking four to eight capsules daily during a cold sore and one to two capsules daily between cold sores is common.

Is large dose lysine safe?

The short answer is YES. No negative side effects have ever been noted. Fact is, flounder mentioned above is so rich in lysine that an eight-ounce serving will provide 7000 mg. (7 grams) of lysine.

Since food-source lysine is twice as absorbed as supplemental lysine, this is equivalent to about 24 capsules.

That's right - you do not have to give up chocolate. Increasing your lysine intake with high-lysine foods or supplements will often cancel out the effects of the arginine foods to avoid with cold sores.

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