Don’t you hate it when you fight a sickness off and the cough sticks around for weeks? The hacking keeps you up at night, makes you hesitant to go out (even though you feel fine), and causes you to feel self-conscious when you are around others.
Well, what if you could end the cough faster and get rid of all the phlegm that’s causing it? Would you be interested?
And what if you could do it with just one nutrient. I know I was excited when I found this information.
Coughing is simply the body’s natural way to detox the lungs. Your body is trying to get more oxygen. And all that phlegm is blocking the flow. So your body coughs in order to get rid of the phlegm.
But sometimes your body needs a little help. That’s where NAC comes in. NAC is short for N-acetylcysteine, a sulfur-containing amino acid.
The sulfur in NAC acts as a detox agent in your liver and lungs, pushing toxins and other junk out. That’s why you have more NAC in your liver and lungs than anywhere else in the body. Like your liver, the lungs are a detoxing organ. They remove all the dust, smoke, pollens, microscopic bacteria, pollutants, and other non-essential things we breathe in.
But when a bug takes hold in your respiratory tract, it hinders your lungs’ ability to detox. That’s when all that crud builds up. Coughing helps get rid of it. But, as you may know, coughing doesn’t always work that effectively.
A Different View of Coughing
While coughing is a nuisance, it’s also a message your body is sending you. The message is that the lungs don’t have enough NAC to clear the junk that’s built up.
So the next time you can’t shake a cough after an illness, take it as a strong hint that you need to start taking NAC. You can find NAC online and at any health food store or pharmacy. Most studies say you need to take at least 500-600 mg daily.
How to Make NAC More Effective
There are two ways to make NAC more effective. The first way is to get a prescription for liquid NAC from your doctor. Take this liquid and put it in a nebulizer (you can also add it to water and drink it). This device will send the NAC directly into your lungs. Some people who use this method find that their coughs are much more productive than when they take tablets.
The second way is to take NAC tablets with a meal and take a tablet of hydrochloric acid (HCl) at the same time. You’ll probably remember HCl from your science classes as the substance we call stomach acid.
When you take HCl with NAC and food, your body digests and absorbs the proteins and amino acids better. In fact, some people can just take HCl, and they’ll find their cough disappears. The reason? Your body is then able to pull the NAC from the foods you eat.