Hey guys, Dr. Josh Axe here.
Welcome to Ancient Medicine Today.
Today we will be talking about 11 Natural Treatments for a White Tongue, and did you
know that having a white coating on your tongue could be indicative of a lot of health problems,
from adrenal fatigue, to a microbiome problem in your gut such as leaky gut, or even low
energy levels called low Qi in the body in Chinese medicine.
There are all different types of factors that can be causing a white tongue, so on today's
episode I'm going to be going over what causes a white tongue and the natural remedies, herbs,
the essential oils, and things that can help you get rid of it and take control of your
health.
And by the way, help me spread the word right now that food is medicine.
Take a minute, punch that share button and click that like button.
Millions of people are suffering with conditions related to a white tongue, and don't know
how to overcome this.
Let's first talk about what can cause a white tongue.
Number one, dehydration.
If somebody is not hydrated, it can cause them to have a white tongue.
So of course getting more fluids and not just water but electrolytes in the diet on a daily
basis.
Electrolytes are going to be potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, and even chloride.
These are electrolytes that keep the body hydrated.
So again, dehydration is a cause of white tongue, so make sure you're drinking plenty
of fluids, especially warm fluids like warm tea, and then vegetable juices can help with
hydration.
The next thing would be poor oral hygiene.
Of course if somebody isn't oil pulling, brushing their teeth, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables,
actually green apples, and carrots, and celery, those actually help with good oral hygiene
as does brushing your teeth.
And so again, poor oral hygiene can be causing these issues as well.
An illness or infection can cause a white tongue.
So if somebody gets very rundown, gets a cold, or flu, or has another sort of disease that's
especially affecting the body's immune system, or spleen, or digestive system, this can happen
as well.
A dry mouth, again, oftentimes correlated with dehydration, making sure you're getting
plenty of healthy, healthy liquids in your diet is great as well.
A few other causes is sugar, this is a big one.
When you start to get a white coating on your tongue . . . by the way, there are different
causes of white tongue.
Either your tongue itself can be pale and that can show that whiteness, or it can actually
be a coating on your tongue and if it's the full tongue or back of the tongue, all of
those are different conditions that we’ll get into here in just a minute.
But sugar, if there’s yeast in the body, that can cause a white tongue.
Especially if you've just eaten sugar and go look at your tongue, oftentimes it's more
white right afterwards.
Reaction to medications, you know, medications can leach nutrients from your body and actually
cause yeast overgrowth.
In fact, birth control pills are one of the top medications that have serious, serious
side effects when it comes to causing major yeast overgrowth in your body.
Also having a candida infection in your body, so candida, a type of candida yeast infection
will absolutely cause that white coating on your tongue.
Smoking and tobacco use is another one.
Over use of alcohol, that will typically not cause that coating on your tongue.
It will typically cause a paleness because of all the stress it puts on the liver.
Also worry and emotional stress, this is a big one that will cause a white coating on
your tongue.
In fact, what will cause just as much of a yeast or candida overgrowth as sugar consumption
is a lot of stress and worry.
In fact, that really wears down the spleen, according to Chinese medicine, which can then
cause yeast overgrowth, and congenital heart disease.
If somebody struggling with a heart disease, that's another factor.
And let's move right into one of my favorite topics, and that's Chinese medicine.
When you get a coating on your tongue in Chinese medicine or depending on the coating, it's
indicative of certain health problems.
Let me give an example.
If somebody has a coating, and by the way, go and look at your tongue, stick out your
tongue, “ah.”
Look in the mirror, your bathroom mirror.
If you have a coating on your tongue but it's mostly on the back of your tongue, that's
correlated with adrenal fatigue and low what's called kidney Qi but that means you have adrenal
fatigue or you have kidney issues right there if you have more of a coating on the back
or the posterior part of your tongue according to Chinese medicine.
So you can self diagnose by simply looking at your tongue in the mirror.
Another thing that can be causing a white coating on your tongue is a spleen deficiency.
If you stick out your entire tongue and there's a coating on your entire tongue, that's indicative
of what's called a spleen deficiency and that typically means that your body, especially
your blood cells, things aren't sticking together.
So your spleen is responsible for making things stick together.
Especially if you’re a person who has a loose stool, loose bowel movements, not well-formed,
having some basic digestive issues, and a white coating on your tongue, that's indicative
of a spleen deficiency.
One of the things that can cause spleen deficiencies are worry and stress.
Other things are consuming too much sugar or refined grains.
The other thing is consuming too many damp food such as dairy products, or eggs, or wheat
products, or bananas, or sugar, all of these things cause dampness to accumulate in the
body.
So a spleen deficiency is typically just, your body's too damp which makes you susceptible
to yeast and candida overgrowth in your body which can show up on your tongue as a coating
of a white tongue.
Another thing here is a Qi deficiency, and that is where your kidneys get very worn out
in Chinese medicine.
Now, the way you know that you have a Qi efficiency is not if you have a coating on your tongue
but if your tongue is pale.
Your tongue should actually be a nice bright pink color, okay, when you stick it out and
look at it in the mirror.
So if it's pink it looks good.
If it's like a light pink or even becomes like a pale, a very pale pink, that's a warning
sign that you have a Qi efficiency and that your energy is depleted.
And your kidney, in Chinese medicine, is responsible for bringing up your energy, and here's another
way you know if somebody has low Qi.
You know, sometimes they would say in Chinese medicine that person has a glow about them
or bright eyes.
So if you have this energy, your eyes are bright, you're very, you feel really good
like you just feel good, you know, you feel good, you're energetic.
They would say in Chinese medicine that person has high Qi, that person has really high energy
fullness in their body.
If somebody's energy becomes low, their kidneys aren't working as strong, their lungs, their
liver, these organs become deficient.
People is tend to start to struggle with motivation, say they feel lack . . . not as motivated
and they feel energy depleted as the day goes on.
They start feeling, not really serious clinical depression but oftentimes there's a modest
depression, they can get down some days.
But there is just this overall lack of life, and energy, and a glow about the person.
If somebody has the lack of that, that's low Qi in Chinese medicine and typically that
can also be correlated with a pale tongue, so not a coating but a pale tongue there as
well.
And I’m going to talk about how to help improve some of these things here as well,
and a likely gut imbalance.
If somebody has a white coating on their tongue, typically they have too much bad bacteria
and yeast in their system and they have a lack of soil-based probiotics and good bacteria
and probiotics in their system, which is affecting their overall immune system.
So this is how they would diagnose or deal with some things in Chinese medicine.
Now let's talk about those remedies that help the body overcome a white tongue.
By the way, if you're enjoying this live training, take a minute right now, punch that share
button, click that love button.
Help me spread the word right now on how to use food as medicine and overcome these chronic
deficiencies that so many people are struggling with today.
Number one remedy, probiotics.
We know probiotics help with a number of things, but the number one thing, the right type of
probiotics will do, probiotics will crowd out the bad yeast and candida and support
the growth or help replenish those good bacteria in probiotics that your body is so deficient
in.
And so again, probiotics really help with that microbiome imbalance in the body.
Now, another thing that can also help a white tongue is baking soda.
Baking soda is very alkaline in nature and so that can actually help.
A lot of times when our bodies become too acidic in terms of the foods we are eating
on the regular basis, and if we have things like reflex to where things are coming up,
we want to dry things down.
Baking soda can help with that.
Coconut oil pulling, we know oil pulling.
Coconut oil is very high in medium chain fatty acids which are antimicrobial which help balance
out the good and bad bacteria ratios in the body.
So oil pulling is where you're going to put, like take a tablespoon of coconut oil, swish
it around in your mouth from between 5 minutes and up to 20 minutes ideally.
And a great time to do that when you're in the shower, you know, you put in a tablespoon
of coconut oil, you shower and keep in your mouth and then you spit it out in a paper
towel and throw it away afterwards.
That’s great time to do oil pulling there as well.
By the way, if you've ever done oil pulling, I would love to hear from you right now here
on Facebook Live or Youtube Live.
Let us know if you've done oil pulling and seeing benefits with that.
Sea salt, now sea salt especially good types of truffle salt that are found in things like
the bed of the Pacific Ocean, they are very high in not just sodium but they have good
amounts of trace minerals as well.
And actually a little bit of sea salt or minerals is actually good to support the adrenals,
so we talked about one of those conditions causing a pale tongue or the white coating
in the back of the tongue is a lack of electrolytes or hydration, so sea salt with lots of water
is actually very, very good.
And again, you don't want to do a lot of sea salt but I'm talking about you know, a quarter
of a teaspoon and water, drinking that down very, very good at supporting the adrenal
health there as well, just sprinkling some on your food.
Astragalus, this is the chief urban Chinese medicine that is nourishing to the spleen,
very good for dampness in the body, strengthen these organs as well.
So if you have that white coating on the full of your tongue, you absolutely want to take
astragalus up to six months at a time, very beneficial for the body.
They're one of my favorite herbs, also act as an adaptogenic herb, helping your body
better deal with stress.
Colloidal silver has antimicrobial benefits.
This is especially good if you have a cold or flu.
Again, I know there are, some people that worried about colloidal silver.
It's completely safe if you're doing about a teaspoon a day, or a teaspoon multiple times
a day if you have an illness.
But again, colloidal silver can be very beneficial or just plain silver is good as well.
Garlic, now garlic contains allicin, an antimicrobial that is also an antivirus, anti-yeast, can
kill off these bad bacteria in your system.
So adding garlic to your diet on a daily basis can prove beneficial when it comes to getting
rid of that white tongue.
Now probably the most powerful natural antibiotic in the world today is oil of oregano via oregano
oil.
And oregano oil contains a compound called carvacrol and even some level of thymol and
both of these compounds in oregano oil kill off bad bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungal,
infections.
So oregano oil, very powerful.
Now, I don't recommend taking a regular oil more than 10 to 14 days in a row internally.
So you can add oregano to your meals, to burger meat, to chicken, add it just as a leaf to
your meals on a regular basis.
But if you're going to go through a candida cleanse, and really cleanse your body of bad
bacteria.
oftentimes people will do oregano oil about one to three drops, three times a day with
food for about 10 days as well as eating a lot of probiotics during the day as well when
you're doing a candida cleanse like that.
And Pau d’Arco tea, they actually believe if somebody is stricken with candida and that's
the cause of their white tongue, Pau d’Arco is the most powerful tea anyone can consume.
I recommend one cup three times daily of Pau d’Arco tea, and this is very cooling to
the body and helps eliminate any type of fungal or candida issue there as well.
Bone broth, you know one of the things I did for my patients in the past when they struggled
with candida or white tongue, I would have them do a bone broth cleanse where they drink
bone broth, they drink Pau d’Arco tea and then they consume loads of probiotics and
they do that for three days in a row.
Then after three days for breakfast and lunch they drink bone broth all day along with Pau
d’Arco tea and probiotics and for dinner they'll do a big salad meal, meat, lots of
veggies, maybe a whole grain, that type of thing.
But that's a perfect diet for getting rid of the white tongue.
And of course, good oral hygiene, brushing your teeth, good for getting rid of a white
tongue.
But all of these things in combination, great natural remedies for getting over white tongue.
I want to highlight a few.
I would say the best are probiotics, astragalus, oil of oregano, Pau d’Arco, and bone broth,
the most powerful natural remedies at getting rid of a white tongue.
So I hope you've enjoyed this live training.
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And if you want to learn more about a white tongue or conditions like candida or Qi deficiency
or adrenal fatigue, you can also just check on Google and Google my name “Dr. Axe candida,”
“Dr. Axe adrenal” and I've got some great in-depth articles for you to read on my website
draxe.com as well.
Thanks for watching, this is been me, Dr. Josh Axe, with Ancient Medicine Today.