Foods to Avoid When Managing Bronchitis Symptoms
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Foods to Avoid With Bronchitis

While comfort foods may soothe the soul, the inflammation they cause could exacerbate your illness.

Foods to Avoid With Bronchitis
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Updated on July 31, 2025
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When you’re sick with bronchitis, it might be tempting to indulge in ready-made comfort foods to help take your mind off of the coughing, raspy throat, and low spirit that can accompany this illness.

But certain foods of delight and convenience ⁠— particularly ones containing refined carbohydrates and saturated fats ⁠— may increase inflammation in the body and slow down your recovery. They could also disturb the bacteria and other microbes living in your intestines (called the gut microbiome) and contribute to lower immunity.

It’s okay to treat yourself on sick days, as long as you stay mindful of foods that may irritate or prolong your bronchitis.

Inflammation and Bronchitis

Bronchitis is an inflammation of the tubes that carry air to and from your lungs. The condition often develops after a chest cold and comes in two forms: acute, or of brief duration, and chronic, which can last for years.

Your doctor may recommend that you eat inflammation-fighting foods and steer clear of inflammatory foods when you're sick with bronchitis, since it’s an inflammatory disease.

When you want to figure out which foods are inflammatory, you can use the typical Western diet as a guide. That’s because it includes a long list of popular inflammation-causing foods. The Western diet is heavy on animal-based and highly processed foods. It’s rich in saturated fat, added sugars, sodium, and refined grains. And it’s low in fiber and nutritional value.

The Gut-Lung Axis

Along with studies on inflammation and respiratory disease, there is an emerging body of research focusing on the “gut-lung axis.” This term describes the relationship between the digestive system and the lungs. Some types of food can affect the bacteria and other microbes living in your gut, and that in turn might have certain effects on your lungs.

Around 70 percent of the body’s immune cells live in the gut. An imbalance in the gut — which could mean a shortage of good bacteria, an overgrowth of harmful bacteria, or a loss of overall microbiome diversity — can lead to a dysregulated immune response in the lungs. And that could increase vulnerability to inflammation and infection.

Research suggests that an imbalanced gut microbiome may make us more vulnerable to respiratory infections.

Foods to Avoid With Bronchitis

Now, considering this research on the respiratory system’s relationship to inflammation and the gut, here is what you might want to avoid eating or drinking repeatedly if you have bronchitis:

  • Refined Sugars and Simple Carbs These contribute significantly to inflammation. Examples include soda, fruit juices, white bread, white pasta, and ice cream.

  • Trans Fats and Saturated Fats These fats can worsen inflammation and respiratory conditions. They are commonly found in processed and packaged foods, fried foods, butter, lard, fat and skin from meat, hydrogenated vegetable oils, shortening, cookies, crackers, and pastries.

  • Excessive Sodium and Salt High sodium intake causes water retention (edema), which can affect breathing ability and worsen respiratory symptoms in conditions like chronic bronchitis.

  • Fried and Greasy Foods These foods can contribute to inflammation and lower gut microbiota diversity, which can negatively impact the gut-lung axis.

Moderation Is Usually OK

Take into account that most studies focus on the impact of chronic consumption of specific foods on the body. This means that although it’s best to eat foods that fight inflammation while you have bronchitis, you are probably not putting yourself in harm’s way by treating yourself once or twice on a sick day.

The Takeaway

  • Repeatedly eating refined sugars, saturated fats, and processed foods can increase inflammation, potentially slowing your recovery from bronchitis.
  • An unhealthy gut microbiome, linked to a poor diet, can make you more susceptible to respiratory infections via the gut-lung axis.
  • Focus on whole foods, rich in fiber and anti-inflammatory nutrients, to help calm inflammation and support your immune system.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
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Resources
  1. Bronchitis. Mayo Clinic. July 31, 2024.
  2. Foods that fight inflammation. Harvard Health Publishing. March 2024.
  3. Nutrition and Immunity. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
  4. Tashiro H et al. Gut–Lung Axis in Asthma and Obesity: Role of the Gut Microbiome. Frontiers in Allergy. June 15, 2025.
  5. Li Chunxi et al. The Gut Microbiota and Respiratory Diseases: New Evidence. Journal of Immunology Research. July 31, 2020.
  6. Hernández-Díazcouder A et al. Negative Effects of Chronic High Intake of Fructose on Lung Diseases. Nutrients. October 1, 2022.
  7. Wypych TP et al. The Impact of Diet on Immunity and Respiratory Diseases. Annals of the American Thoracic Society. November 2017.
  8. Nutrition and COPD. American Lung Association. May 23, 2023.
  9. Qi L. Fried Foods, Gut Microbiota, and Glucose Metabolism. Diabetes Care. August 26, 2021.
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Kayli Anderson, RDN

Medical Reviewer
Member of American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Kayli Anderson has over a decade of experience in nutrition, culinary education, and lifestyle medicine. She believes that eating well should be simple, pleasurable, and sustainable. Anderson has worked with clients from all walks of life, but she currently specializes in nutrition therapy and lifestyle medicine for women. She’s the founder of PlantBasedMavens.com, a hub for women to get evidence-based, practical, and woman-centered guidance on nutrition and cooking, hormone health, fertility, pregnancy, movement, mental well-being, nontoxic living, and more.

Anderson is board-certified in lifestyle medicine and serves as lead faculty of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s (ACLM) "Food as Medicine" course. She is past chair of the ACLM's registered dietitian member interest group, secretary of the women's health member interest group, and nutrition faculty for many of ACLM's other course offerings. She is the coauthor of the Plant-Based Nutrition Quick Start Guide and works with many of the leading organizations in nutrition and lifestyle medicine to develop nutrition content, recipes, and educational programs.

Anderson frequently speaks on the topics of women’s health and plant-based nutrition and has coauthored two lifestyle medicine textbooks, including the first one on women’s health, Improving Women's Health Across the Lifespan.

She received a master's degree in nutrition and physical performance and is certified as an exercise physiologist and intuitive eating counselor. She's a student of herbal medicine and women's integrative and functional medicine. She lives with her husband in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, where you’ll find her out on a trail or in her garden.

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Magdalena is a freelance writer, editor and photographer in New York City. She has a B.A. in journalism and Spanish from New York University and a masters in magazine writing and editing from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Magdalena has written for The Atlantic, Esquire.com, and The Hechinger Report, among others. Her work also appears on her website: magdalenaslapik.com.

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