Follow these tips for fueling your body when you have viral gastroenteritis:
- Let your stomach settle. Avoid eating solid foods for a few hours. Drink liquids instead, such as teas, broths, sodas, and sports drinks without caffeine.
- Hydrate. To stay hydrated, concentrate on consuming small amounts of liquid on a regular basis.
- Ease back into eating. Start eating smaller meals of bland, low-residue foods, such as mashed potatoes, plain noodles, crackers, toast, gelatin, bananas, rice, and chicken, as soon as you can handle drinking clear liquids.
- Be cautious with medications. Since over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen can upset your stomach, it’s best to use them sparingly. To prevent any possible side effects, talk to your healthcare team about your medications. If your symptoms are severe, you might need to take an anti-nausea medication to prevent vomiting when you vomit, or an over-the-counter medication to lessen the symptoms of diarrhea.
The primary consequence of a stomach virus is dehydration, which is a significant loss of water and vital minerals and salts. By consuming enough fluids to replace those lost through vomiting or diarrhea, you can reduce your risk of becoming dehydrated.
Viral gastroenteritis symptoms typically manifest one to three days following exposure, depending on the cause. The symptoms last for a few days to a week and can be minor or severe at times.
Improved appetite, better digestion
All that makes sense, because amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and the amino acid glutamate is found in foods with the umami taste. Not all umami foods are meat or poultry, however; cheese, mushrooms, miso and soy sauce have it too.
Studies show that taste, it turns out, is critical to the healing properties of chicken soup. When I see patients with upper respiratory illnesses, I notice many of them are suddenly eating less or not eating at all. This is because acute illnesses ignite an inflammatory response that can decrease your appetite. Not feeling like eating means you’re unlikely to get the nutrition you need, which is hardly an optimal recipe for immune health and recovery from illness.
But evidence suggests that the umami taste in chicken soup may help spur a bigger appetite. Participants in one study said they felt hungrier after their first taste of a soup with umami flavor added in by researchers.
Other studies say umami may also improve nutrient digestion. Once our brains sense umami through the taste receptors on our tongues, our bodies prime our digestive tracts to absorb protein more easily.
This can reduce gastrointestinal symptoms, which many people experience when they’re under the weather. Although most people don’t associate upper respiratory infections with gastrointestinal symptoms, research in children has found that the flu virus increased abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea symptoms.
