What Does Your Tongue Reveal About Your Health?

Have you looked at your tongue recently?  If not, get a mirror and poke out your tongue.  What do you see?  Is it smooth and pink?  Ideally that’s how your tongue should look. If you’ve overindulged in food and alcohol recently, your tongue may have a white, yellow or brown coating. Sounds very unappealing, but there’s a lot you can do to clean it up.

Your tongue is a great indicator of the health of your digestive tract and liver.  Having a coated tongue usually means you have poor digestion or too many bad bugs/yeast in your bowel and/or a sluggish liver.  It may also cause bad breath of which you may be unaware.  Thankfully there is plenty you can do to resolve these problems.

Having a coated tongue usually indicates that you don’t digest food very well and because of this, bad bowel bacteria and yeast such as Candida are allowed to overgrow.  Your liver helps you digest fat by producing bile.  If you have liver or gallbladder problems, you may not be able to produce enough bile for adequate digestion.  This can leave you feeling bloated and physically and mentally tired.  Taking an ox bile supplement can help to restore healthy bile levels in your intestines.

A coated tongue and bad breath can also be indicators that your stomach is not producing enough hydrochloric acid. This can leave you unable to digest protein rich foods such as meat, seafood, eggs and poultry. Therefore food can sit in your stomach for too long, leaving you feeling bloated and excessively heavy. Stomach acid is also a brilliant disinfectant. It helps to kill bad bugs in your digestive tract. If you don’t make enough stomach acid, you won’t be experiencing these antiseptic benefits. This is also very relevant in people who take acid suppressing drugs for indigestion or heartburn.

Because bad bacteria and yeast tend to overgrow in people with poor digestion, the toxins they produce can lead to bloating, gas and indigestion, as well as bad breath.
Nearly everyone will get a coated tongue while they have a cold or flu, if they are smokers or if they are dehydrated.  This is normal because toxins are building up in these situations.  However, people with chronic sinus problems, usually have a coated tongue all the time.  These people are prone to chronic and/or recurring infections.

How to clean up your tongue so it looks attractive and you feel well

• Firstly you need to stop eating foods that promote sluggish digestion and overgrowth of bad bowel flora.  Sugar is fertilizer for bad bugs everywhere in the body.  Diabetics are much more prone to all sorts of infections, but you don’t need to be a diabetic to have an overgrowth of bad bowel bugs from eating too much sugar.  Sugar is found in so many processed foods that don’t even taste sweet; it is easy to eat a lot of sugar without even realizing it.  It is also advisable to stop eating yeast while trying to fix your digestive system.  Yeast is mostly found in some bread, mushrooms and some alcohol. Yeast allergies are very common.
• Make sure you are having regular bowel movements.  Most people eat at least three times a day; therefore you should be having a bowel movement at least once a day.  If you don’t go regularly, the waste you’re not getting rid of will become food for all sorts of bad bugs, yeast and Candida.  Drinking eight to ten glasses of water or herbal tea each day is helpful, and exercise helps to promote intestinal contractions (peristalsis) that move food along your digestive tract.
• You may need Intestinal Parasite Cleanse capsules.  These capsules help to get rid of parasites such as E. coli bacteria, Candida, Giardia, worms and a host of other unfriendly micro-organisms that may exist in your intestines and use the nutrients from your food. You may have contracted them from traveling overseas, in the school yard, unclean hands used to prepare your food, or contaminated food and water.  Common symptoms of intestinal parasites include fatigue, abdominal bloating, gas, diarrhea or burping.
• Drink raw vegetable juices as these detoxify your liver and gut.  Avoid fruit juice because it is too high in sugar.  The best vegetables to juice are radishes, leafy vegetables like kale and lettuce, fresh herbs like cilantro, basil and arugula; celery, red onion, capsicum, carrot and cucumbers. For recipe ideas, see the book Raw Juices Can Save Your Life.
• Take a powerful liver tonic.  If you have a coated tongue, your liver definitely needs some help.  Cleaning up your diet will certainly help, but that is a long term process.  Taking a good liver tonic will help you feel and look better much sooner.  Livatone Plus contains the nutrients your liver needs to make it more efficient at detoxification and supports the production of healthy bile, which is a great way to eliminate toxins via the feces.
• Avoid mucus forming foods.  As I mentioned, chronic sinus problems can cause a coated tongue, bad breath, as well as headaches and generalized aches and pains.  Ice cream, cream, margarine, cream cheeses, deep fried foods and sugar are very mucus forming foods; they promote excess phlegm, infections and allergies. Any food you are allergic to will also promote excess mucus production.
• Avoid excess alcohol.  Alcohol compromises your liver function and it certainly promotes bad breath and a coated tongue the next morning.

These tips should help get your tongue looking pink and clean.  Have you looked at your partner’s tongue recently?  You may want to inspect their tongue before you kiss them again! Yes a 4 to 6 week cleanse of your gut and liver can be great for your tongue, breath and complexion, helping you to feel happy and confident.

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.