In our impression, once a person gets sick, relatives and friends will cook chicken soup for the patient to drink. Is chicken soup really that nutritious, and can all patients drink it? Not necessarily. As far as I know, although chicken soup is nutritious, there are 5 types of patients who are not suitable for drinking it.
Why drink chicken soup when sick?
Although chicken soup cannot cure diseases, it can alleviate the patient's physical symptoms and improve the body's immune function. The reason is that chicken soup can effectively inhibit inflammation and excessive mucus production in the human body, which helps to reduce nasal congestion and sore throat, and the frequency of coughing will also be relatively reduced. Therefore, when people are sick, they subconsciously cook chicken soup to supplement their nutrition.
However, chicken soup is not a panacea, and some patients are even unsuitable for drinking it.
1. Excess stomach acid: Chicken soup stimulates the secretion of stomach acid. Therefore, patients with gastric ulcers, hyperacidity, or gastric bleeding generally should not drink chicken soup.
2. Biliary tract diseases: Patients who frequently suffer from cholecystitis and cholelithiasis should not drink too much chicken soup, because the digestion of fat in chicken soup requires the participation of bile. Drinking chicken soup will stimulate the gallbladder to contract, which can easily trigger an attack of cholecystitis.
3. Hypertension: For patients with high blood pressure, drinking chicken soup can not only cause arteriosclerosis but also lead to a sustained increase in blood pressure that is difficult to lower.
4. Hyperlipidemia: After the fat in chicken soup is absorbed, it will cause cholesterol to rise further. Excessively high cholesterol can deposit on the inner walls of blood vessels, leading to diseases such as coronary arteriosclerosis.
5. Renal insufficiency: Chicken soup contains some small-molecule proteins. Patients with acute nephritis, acute or chronic renal insufficiency, or uremia cannot process the byproducts of protein decomposition in a timely manner. Drinking too much chicken soup can cause azotemia and worsen their condition.
In fact, the chicken soup many people cook is not as nutritious as one might imagine. Especially long-simmered broths, after prolonged cooking, only contain water-soluble small-molecule substances dissolved from the chicken oil, skin, meat, and bones. Besides that, it's just oil and calories, and the purine content is also very high. Objectively speaking, it is not nutritious. And for patients with gout and cardiovascular diseases, it is very unsuitable to drink.
Therefore, experts recommend that chicken soup should not be simmered for too long.