What Phlegm Color Reveals About Your Respiratory Health

Dr. Joseph Mercola - Take Control of Your Health

Briana Mercola

Health & Fitness, Alternative Health

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Phlegm color shifts give you immediate clues about what's happening in your airways, helping you judge whether irritation, inflammation or infection is building before symptoms intensify
Yellow and green tones reflect immune activity, while pink, red, brown or black phlegm signal bleeding, long-standing lung issues or fungal infection, giving you clear markers for when to act quickly
Sudden changes from your normal phlegm pattern matter more than the color itself, allowing you to use your personal baseline as a reliable guide for when something is wrong
Texture changes — such as thick, sticky or chunky phlegm — often point to uncontrolled airway inflammation, giving you another early sign that your respiratory system is under strain
Nebulized hydrogen peroxide, when properly diluted, helps lower viral load in your nasal passages, sinuses and lungs, easing phlegm triggered by viral irritation and helping you recover faster

Transcript

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0:00.0	Are you noticing new colors in what you cough up and wondering if your airways are trying to warn you?
0:05.0	Welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular wisdom. Stay informed with quick, easy-to-listen summaries of our latest articles, perfect for when you're on the go. No reading required.
0:15.0	Subscribe for free at Mercola.com for the latest health insights.
0:19.0	Hello, and welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular wisdom.
0:21.6	I'm Ethan Foster, and today we're going straight to what your phlegm color and texture
0:26.6	reveal about irritation, inflammation, or infection, and how to respond before symptoms
0:33.6	escalate.
0:34.6	I'll guide the key questions so you can use your own baseline as a practical tool.
0:38.3	I'm a Lara Sky.
0:40.3	I'll walk through what different colors and textures mean,
0:43.3	why sudden shifts matter more than any single shade,
0:46.3	and how a properly diluted nebulized hydrogen peroxide solution
0:50.3	can help when a viral trigger is driving thick, colored mucus. Let's start with the core idea.
0:56.0	Your baseline.
0:58.0	If you rarely see phlegm and suddenly do, even if it's white, that change deserves attention.
1:03.0	If you typically see a consistent pattern, but it darkens, thickens, or shows up more often,
1:09.0	that shift says your airways are under strain.
1:11.7	These personal patterns help you decide when to observe and when to act.
1:16.1	Color can narrow your next step.
1:18.6	Clear or white generally tracks with normal function or early congestion.
1:24.0	Yellow often shows early immune activity rather than infection severity.
1:28.3	As your white blood cells move into the mucus, pigment changes follow.
	...

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