Does chocolate cause herpes outbreaks?
Maybe.
A nurse sent me this article on Herpes Outbreak Prevention and I decided to do some research on the topic.
When I was diagnosed with genital HSV-2 in 2013, I was fortunate to understand not to just Google ‘herpes’. I was curious specifically about navigating outbreaks and minimizing symptoms. There were three key things that consistently showed up in the results; exercise, nutrition, and stress management.
On the surface, someone would think “avoid these foods”, “do these exercises”, and “do Yoga”. We want simple solutions to complex problems and it doesn’t work that way. The thing is, we don’t know it doesn’t work that way until we have experiences that show us otherwise. Notice what I said . . . until WE have experiences that show us otherwise. This means we have to have our own individual experiences with these practices. We have to actually see what foods do and don’t work for us, what exercises do and don’t work, and what stress management practices are a fit for us.
When we get diagnosed with herpes, it’s easy to identify with the diagnosis and think our entire life now has to revolve around preventing symptoms, transmission, and rejection. That mindset will cause much more harm because we will very quickly latch on to some stranger on the internet’s way of doing things at our own detriment out of desperation. Someone on Reddit will say “NEVER EAT CHOCOLATE” and someone whose had herpes for years who just decided to start dating again is looking for information on how to navigate dating with herpes can come across that after having eaten chocolate and never had an outbreak after their initial one, then avoid chocolate like a dog should. My point here is that we’ll take a fraction of a percent of someone’s entire existence and make a rule we live by from that without challenging it.
I’m here with the intention of giving you the tools to challenge the simple statement of chocolate causing outbreaks and teach you to navigate challenging these definitive statements that do not apply universally to people.
Going back to minimizing symptoms, let’s look at the three things that popped up for me. First, a little about herpes. Herpes lives in the dorsal root ganglion, a cluster of nerve cell bodies in a latency state where it essentially is asleep. Our immune system’s ‘guard’ cells live right outside those roots. If the immune system is operating properly, the virus stays where it is. What happens with outbreaks is essentially those guards get a little tired and negligent, abandoning their posts for another emergency or they’re just tired. Then, the virus can go back down the nerve pathway to the skin.
Nutrition
Immune cells need micronutrients like your vitamin C in order to maintain energy. Keep in mind that’s not all our immune cells need. In reference to HSV, there’s a mechanical relationship with two particular micronutrients, or amino acids: Arginine and Lysine. Herpes requires Arginine to replicate its viral casting. Lysine is a competing amino acid which blocks Arginine from being absorbed efficiently. Let's say a diet has more foods that contain Arginine like nuts, CHOCOLATE, and certain seeds, AND is low in Lysine which is in dairy, fish, and legumes. What happens is that it can give the virus the building blocks it needs in order to multiply, with consideration to the immune system also not getting its energy to keep the virus at bay. This combination of events is what makes chocolate cause outbreaks. The below study concludes that” leading a physically active lifestyle reduces the incidence of communicable and non-communicable diseases, implying that immune competency is enhanced by regular exercise bouts.”
Exercise
Without going too much into the laws of physics, essentially exercise creates stress on the body for the body to be able to navigate its natural stress like the wear and tear of having and using a body that ages. Moderate, consistent exercise increases blood and lymphatic circulation, which flushes immune cells through the body more efficiently. The body spots viral activity more quickly and it can metabolize and burn off excess cortisol. TOO MUCH exercise can be an additional physical stressor, so please don’t dive into full cross-fit if you haven’t started with just push ups, sit ups, and body weight squats and pull ups. Overtraining and undertraining are both things that can lead to creating the circumstances to cause a herpes outbreak. We want our own experience with exercise to find what works for us.
National Library of Medicine (Again)
Stress Management
Chronic stress can be caused by our environment, a heavy workload, or internalized stigma. The body will flood us with cortisol, the stress hormone, which is a literal immunosuppressant. Being in ‘fight or flight’ constantly means that our immune system is constantly saving energy for an emergency. This tells the immune system guards watching the herpes cell to lower their guard. When their guard is lowered, herpes sees them yawning, or more sluggish, and thinks “now’s my chance”. It exits dormancy and replicates itself. We want to manage that flow of conserved energy to minimize cortisol release and manage our stress so that the immune system can stay energized and alert.
Now we understand the relationship between nutrition, exercise, and stress management to minimize symptoms. So where did this belief that chocolate causes outbreaks come from?
There’s these two types of studies that were done:
Lysine for Herpes Simplex Prophylaxis
The authors, Venthan J. Mailoo and S. Rampes is from Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal from June 2017 analyzed the historical clinical trials and concluded that restricting arginine and supplementing lysine is clinically unreliable and lacks convincing evidence. It highlights that the entire premise is based on tissue culture (study where individual fragments of tissues are isolated and grown in a sterile and artificial environment). In actual human trials the results are inconsistent and heavily influenced by the placebo effect. Humans are not in these sterile environments with strict diets of only essential nutrients and structure like these experiments demonstrate. The information presented in this review explicitly points out that the foundation of this diet comes from tissue cultures which do not map to an in vivo human metabolism.
Relation of Arginine-lysine Antagonism to Herpes Simplex Growth in Tissue Culture
This is the study where they put the virus in a glass dish, dumped pure amino acids on it, and watched it grow. The concept that arginine feeds HSV originates from the 1981 Griffith Study. However, that study was conducted entirely in tissue culture (in vitro). The human liver’s first-pass metabolism heavily regulates amino acid serum levels, meaning eating dietary protein does not recreate the isolated conditions of Griffith’s petri dish.
So what actually causes outbreaks then? According to the Glucocorticoid-Induced HSV Reactivation and CD8+ T-Cell Exhaustion study, we’ll use this for reference. The modern virological consensus is that HSV is latent thanks to the immune system’s ability to maintain it by hovering around the nerve ganglia. When there’s a spike in cortisol, whether from psychological stress, poor sleep, or a weakened immune system, the T-cells get suppressed which allows the virus to travel down the nerve. Basically, if we’re tired, our immune system is tired. Herpes as an opportunistic virus identifies this and takes this opportunity to run wild. More accurately, a significant increase or sustained elevation of cortisol, not chocolate, causes herpes outbreaks. If you don’t believe me, Googling herpes and stress or cortisol will generate the most consistent answers to anything related to herpes outbreaks. I trust those responses because there’s nothing that conflicts with the consistency of results to that inquiry.
COULD chocolate trigger herpes outbreaks? Maybe. Based on this research, I have to say that has not been my experience. It is more accurate to state that arginine, if given a clear and direct path to the nerve ganglia where herpes lies, and your immune system is significantly down and unable to maintain the virus’ dormant state. Humans love a good one liner and simple fix to complex concerns. Bodies, the mind, the overall human experience just doesn’t work that way.The body has its own processes and intelligence to where if given the tools, the energy the body uses to process physical toxins is what’s left over from the brain and nervous system’s use of the same energy to process thoughts and feelings. These unseen thoughts and feelings produce physical toxins and chemical responses in the body that drain the same energy the body uses to maintain equilibrium, managing the cortisol spikes that can slow down the liver’s ability to clean out the proteins it breaks down like arginine, and therefore a backup of the nutrient herpes likes becomes available AND the guards of its cell are out of commission. The arginine argument is a symptom of the actual disease metaphorically. Not eating chocolate or foods with arginine in them isn’t going to prevent outbreaks, especially if NOT eating those foods increases your cortisol levels. Address THAT first so that the body can do its job.
When I was diagnosed with genital HSV in 2013, I did my Googling and just exercised consistently, ate a little more healthily, and then started practicing Yoga. These three changes minimized the likelihood of creating the conditions for the herpes virus to run wild. I didn’t know what arginine or lysine were until after 2019 as I started conversing with more people about how they managed the virus. Seeing people say nuts and chocolate caused outbreaks as I was chugging my chocolate peanut butter proteins and spoonfuls of peanut butter straight, I found it interesting, but didn’t change anything. Fortunately, my outbreak triggers are known to me. Getting fired from a job and taking in diabetes-inducing levels of sugar on a consistent basis are my triggers.
Chocolate, arginine, these circumstances to influence herpes symptoms have to do a LOT of things in order for the cause and effect to occur with this outcome. According to the studies referenced here in this blog, life circumstances have far more influence than “if I have chocolate, then I will have a herpes outbreak”. I understand my triggers because I was able to see the connection between the timing of my outbreaks and what was happening in my life at the time. I encourage you to do the same. Don’t just look at what you ate or that you didn’t work out one day. How’d you feel? What was your sleeping pattern over the past few weeks? How do you feel at work, around some environments and people you’re around? Is your psychological and emotional battery more drained than you can replenish it? What’s left over for the body to use to maintain homeostasis?
When you prioritize that battery staying charged by managing our thoughts and emotions, the body is best able to manage the chemicals in our environments and proximities to others and behaviors/actions we take on a consistent basis before they can solidify in excess creating the toxins that become additionally draining on the battery. Have your chocolate. Trust your body to break down the arginine. Get your sleep. Keep your cortisol down, and eat the damn chocolate.
