Dietary changes to eat or avoid when you have Low platelet count

 Low platelet count  is a condition called Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP). To cure this, your doctor is very likely to suggest lifestyle and dietary changes along with any medications (if any), to promote your overall well-being. Dietary changes would not directly affect your platelet count but it can help you in managing your symptoms and feel your best.

 

 

About ITP

Let we first understand what platelets exactly are, and what role they play in our body. Whenever we scratch or cut ourselves, we start bleeding. After a few minutes, we see the blood drying and forming a crusty texture and over the exposed skin. This is done in order to stop the cut from bleeding out more and more blood. This process of clotting in order to stop bleeding is carried out by colorless cell-like structures called platelets. So, ITP is a condition of low platelet count were, you have a count of 150,000 platelets or lower per microliter of blood. Platelets are nothing but cell fragments that form clots to stop bleeding in or outside our body. So a low count of it can cause a lot of blood loss on any external cut, or a severe cause of internal bleeding. Hence, recovering from it becomes extremely important.

 

Foods to eat

The best food for curing or recovering from ITP include all those that are “whole” and “clean”. In other words, it means that packaged and processed foods should be avoided. It is because whole, unprocessed foods provide our bodies with more energy and that helps us in reducing fatigue. So, opting of organic food over non-organic options makes the whole recovery rate faster and better. If you can’t budget the money to buy organic, we should avoid fruits and vegetables with higher amounts of pesticide residue. Your diet should consist of:

1. Whole Fruits
2. Green leafy vegetables
3. Skinless poultry (like chicken breast and ground turkey)
4. Fatty fish (like salmon)
5. Healthy fat (from olive oil, Avacado, etc)
6. Flaxseeds
7. Nuts
8. Whole grains
9. Whole wheat bread and pasta
10. Eggs
11. Low-fat dairy products in moderation

 

Foods to Avoid

Other than from knowing what to eat, it is extremely important to know what food can affect to aggravate or slowdown the recovery of ITP. If you are not sure what affects you more, a diet journal can help you by making sure you eat only what you are supposed to. So, in a way indirectly avoiding the harmful food. It is better to talk to your doctor about the foods you should avoid in consideration of your other underlying health conditions.

Certain studies offer that drinking coffee can create phenolic acid in our body. While this acid does not directly affect the platelet count, it affects the functioning of the platelets. So, in ITP, drinking coffee can make it worse. This doesn’t depend on the number of caffeine levels present in the coffee.

Other food items you can avoid are:

1. Red meat
2. Garlic and onion (they have a blood-thinning effect on our bodies)
3. Saturated fats found in dairy products
4. Fast food
5. Packaged and processed food
6. Non-plant-based oils like butter and margarine
7. Canned food
8. Fruits with blood-thinning effect (like certain berries, tomatoes, etc)

 

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