In life, it is inevitable that everyone will have phlegm in the throat.
As a secretion of the respiratory tract, sputum can keep the respiratory tract moist, and can adsorb into the respiratory tract of some bacteria and dust and other substances, has a certain degree of protective effect on the respiratory tract.
Usually, these secretions do not appear much, usually with the help of cilia swinging to the throat, spitting out with cough or swallowing with saliva.
However, if the respiratory tract is stimulated accordingly, the sputum secreted will increase, which will cause people to have obvious sputum coughing.
At this point, people will want to spit.
But the problem is that sometimes in some special situations, or in public places, spitting is not very elegant after all, and it is not hygienic, so many people will choose to swallow sputum.
Is there any harm in swallowing phlegm?
Well.... In fact, it is generally not recommended to swallow.
I believe that many people will have a more obvious feeling of nausea after swallowing phlegm, and it will also be accompanied by some stomach discomfort.
The sputum secreted by healthy people is very small, and it is particularly thin, and it will enter the throat through ciliary movements, and it will be swallowed with saliva, and it will not cause any discomfort.
However, many people will have a lot of dust, smoke and other allergens in the environment, which will stimulate the respiratory tract and increase the amount of sputum.
The composition of sputum will also change, for example, there will be some bacteria in the sputum.
Once such sputum is swallowed, these bacteria will irritate the stomach wall, which will not only make people feel nauseous, but also cause vomiting, diarrhea or reduced appetite.
Not only will it bring nausea, some sputum may cause some problems
First, stimulate the stomach and intestines
If you suffer from some respiratory infections, the bacteria contained in sputum will increase.
If these sputum with pathogenic microorganisms is swallowed, the stomach acid cannot completely kill it, and a small part of the bacteria will make the stomach wall strongly stimulated, which is easy to make people feel repeated stomach discomfort, or cause problems such as food reflux.
Second, it is easy to induce tuberculosis
The stomach acid in the stomach has a strong acidity, which can kill some pathogenic microorganisms, and most microorganisms cannot survive in the stomach.
However, stomach acid can not kill tuberculosis bacteria, if the patient's sputum has some tuberculosis bacteria, once the sputum is swallowed, it will make these tuberculosis bacteria spread rapidly.
These tuberculosis bacteria will spread through the blood line, such as entering the kidneys, brain, joints, lymph nodes, digestive tract, central nervous system, intestines and other parts, resulting in infection with tuberculosis bacteria in these parts, resulting in tuberculosis.
Then the probability of suffering from various tuberculosis diseases such as renal tuberculosis, intestinal tuberculosis, osteoarticular tuberculosis, and renal tuberculosis will increase relatively.
Third, susceptible to intestinal infectious diseases
After the bacteria in the sputum are not killed by stomach acid, they will invade the intestine with the digestive tract, such as tuberculosis bacteria once they invade the intestine, which will cause the appearance of intestinal tuberculosis.
If Staphylococcus aureus is present, it is very likely to cause inflammation of the intestine. A large number of bacteria will enter the intestine, causing the intestinal flora to be unbalanced, which can easily lead to various intestinal diseases.
In daily life, no matter what kind of people, it is necessary not to swallow sputum into the stomach, but also do not spit on the ground.
When sputum appears, spit the sputum into a tissue, wrap it around it, put it in a trash can, and then wash your hands. It will not affect the health of the body, nor will it cause pollution to the environment.
Therefore, if you can't bear to let phlegm pollute the environment, you may wish to bring more tissues with you!
bibliography:
[1] Wilder Smith Epper. Irritating skin wrinkling as an indicator of limb sympathetic function. Clinical Neurophysiology.Jan.2015;126(1):10~6.
[2] Diagnostics, The Seventh Edition of Medical Textbooks of the People's Medical Publishing House. Chen Wenbin and Pan Xianglin are the editors-in-chief