Watch the CarbSmart Podcast Episode 22 on YouTube

Listen to the CarbSmart Podcast Episode 22 Here

Show Notes and Transcript for the Podcast

Fall/Autumn Articles — Photo by Nigel Cohen on Unsplash

Ah, yes. Autumn. The cool, crisp air. The brilliant leaves. The cozy sweaters. And the advent of cold and flu season. Achoo! What does this have to do with our low carb diets? More than you might think at first glance. Between cough syrup and cough drops, multi symptom cold relievers like NyQuil. And the oft recommended tea with honey and chicken noodle soup, there are pitfalls here.

So, let’s talk about them. Like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell because you don’t want to miss a single episode.

Cough syrup and cough drops are easy. Virtually any pharmacy will have sugar-free cough syrup, probably labeled diabetic formula, and sugar-free cough drops. Keep in mind that the cough drops are probably made with sugar alcohols.

If sugar alcohols give you gut problems, you’ll want to go easy. Hall’s Sugar-Free cough drops, for example, are made with isomalt, which has very little effect on blood sugar. But can cause gut trouble in large doses. What about multi symptom cold relievers? I was finding mixed information online, so I went to the source.

Or at least one of them. Procter and Gamble, who own the Vicks brand of medications. Two nice women, first Amanda and then Christina, hunted down information for me. Or at least what they could find. Thanks, guys. Here it is.

NyQuil Original has 11 grams of carbohydrate, 0 grams of sugar, 6 grams of glycols, but no word where the other 5 grams of carbohydrate come from. It also has alcohol in about the same proportion as wine.

DayQuil Original has 10 grams of carbs, 0 grams of sugar, and fascinatingly, 10. 5 grams of glycol. If the glycol is the source of the carbs, where’d that extra half gram go?

Dayquil Severe Cold and Flu Honey Formula in the 30 milliliter adult dose has 7 grams of carbohydrate but 0 grams of sugar and No glycol.

Christina could not determine where those carbs come from. NyQuil honey formula has the same carb count and the same mystery. Regarding glycol, no info as to whether that’s propylene glycol or ethylene glycol. However, I did learn that that food grade propylene glycol can kick you out of ketosis. Indeed, it is specifically used to keep cattle out of ketosis. One assumes to help fatten them.

I don’t know about store brand knockoffs of NyQuil and DayQuil. I do know that many store brands of other kinds of things are the same as the original label, even made in the same factories, just with a different label. Still, I have no hard info. Our best bet is the capsule versions of these medications, since they don’t need to be sweet.

They’re sugar-free and carb-free. If you want the soporific effect of the alcohol in liquid NyQuil, no reason not to wash those capsules down with a low carb drink.

You can also use something like Alka Seltzer Plus. The original formula shows asulfame potassium, sometimes called Ace K, aspartame, and mannitol as sweeteners.

So that covers the medications. What about tea with honey?

While I drink a remarkable quantity of tea, I cannot recommend honey for obvious reasons. I dislike sweeteners in my tea anyway. If you’ve relied on tea with honey, You might keep the new allulose based imitation honey on hand. I’ve tried the allulose based imitation honey, and I think it’s quite good.

I haven’t tried it in my tea, because I don’t like sweetened tea, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t be soothing. Do try it.

Stay Hydrated

Why You Still Need To Drink Plenty Of Water — Photo by Kate Joie on Unsplash

We hear the advice to drink plenty of fluids when you have a cold or flu so often that it’s easy to shrug it off, but a million years ago, a member of a club I belong to became the only flu fatality in my circle from dehydration.

She was home alone and apparently felt too ill to get up and fetch beverages. Take that hydration thing seriously.

What about chicken noodle soup?

You know I can’t recommend it. Consider calling your local Chinese restaurant and ordering egg drop or hot and sour soup for delivery. If there are several Chinese restaurants in your town, you might do some testing to figure out which has the soup with the least added cornstarch. It will be the one with the thinnest broth. When I have a cold, hot and sour soup is a lifesaver.

If you happen to have chicken broth, tofu shirataki, and frozen mirepoix vegetables, that’s celery, carrot, and onion, you can dump them in a saucepan, drain and rinse the shirataki first, simmer until the vegetables are soft, and have low carb chicken noodle soup.

But again, this requires you’re having these things on hand. I often do, but I’m a hardcore, nutcase, recipe testing low carber with plenty of storage and freezer space. Chinese delivery would be easier.

Tip that doesn’t involve anything you swallow, but is worth passing on. One of the reasons that fall and winter are flu season is that flu is more likely to be transmitted when the air is dry, as it is in cold weather.

Doctor Consultation with Mask — Image by Herbert II Timtim from Pixabay

In 2019, a team of immunobiologists at Yale discovered that Influenza A virus was less likely to spread in a humidified environment. From Yale News at the time, “The researchers found that low humidity hindered the immune response of the animals in three ways. It prevented cilia, which are hair-like structures in airway cells, from removing viral particles and mucus.”

It also reduced the ability of airway cells to repair damage caused by the virus in the lungs. The third mechanism involved interferons, or signaling proteins, released by virus infected cells to alert neighboring cells to the viral threat. In the low humidity environment, this innate immune defense system failed.

The study offers insight into why the flu is more prevalent when the air is dry. “It’s well known that where humidity drops, a spike in flu incidence and mortality occurs.” It should be noted that they were working with mice bred to resist viral infections like humans do, not with humans. Who wants to volunteer to be exposed to the flu?

But, to quote the lead researcher Akiko Iwasaki, “If our findings in mice hold up in humans, our study provides a possible mechanism underlying the seasonal nature of flu disease,” said Iwasaki. Meanwhile, Keeping the air moist can’t hurt, especially if you work in an environment with a lot of people, a public office, a classroom, or the like.

If those in charge won’t buy a humidifier, look for an old slow cooker at the thrift store. Fill it with water, put it in a corner set to low, and leave the lid off.

Finally, this cheerful thought. My colds are far milder than they used to be. Back in my whole grain and bean days, my colds would start with a focused painful spot on one tonsil.

The following day, my lungs would slowly lock until they felt full of concrete. The next day or two, I’d spend breathing steam and painfully coughing up juicy gobs of phlegm. Then it would move into my face, with all the attendant nose blowing and the feeling that I had millions of baby spiders crawling around in my sinuses.

As is generally true, it would take me a week to get over it. Now? a little bit of a hack, and yes, a runny nose.

Maybe three days, no locked up lungs, and a couple of days of coughing up lung cookies. It’s not pleasant, but it’s far less unpleasant than it used to be. And, I get colds a lot less often than I used to.

And I’m three decades older. So there’s that. Stay well, will ya?

Share this with everyone you think might like it, and don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell, because you don’t want to miss a single episode.

Until next time, stay low carb, happy, and healthy.

Check out more CarbSmart Podcast Episodes.