Cough is one of the most common symptoms of the respiratory system and is a protective measure of the body that is beneficial to the organism. When the mucous membrane of the human airway is stimulated by foreign bodies, inflammation, secretions or allergic factors, it reflexively causes coughing, which helps to eliminate foreign bodies or secretions that have invaded the respiratory tract from outside and eliminate respiratory irritants. However, frequent and severe coughing can have a serious impact on patients’ work, study, life and social activities. In their daily work in emergency clinics, clinicians often hear patients and their families say: “I have a cough, but my mother forbids me to eat seafood…” “I have a cough, but the Chinese medicine doctor says that my baby is not allowed to eat sweet and fatty foods, and I cannot touch spicy and sour fish, shrimp, peanuts or chocolate. What should we give our baby to eat every day? …” “When you have a cough, you can’t eat foods that are hairy (chicken, beef and lamb, and aquatic products). Is it really necessary to avoid eating after cough symptoms occur? Can’t you eat anything? And what are the causes of coughing? How should it be diagnosed and treated? According to Chinese medicine, coughs differ from wind-cold and wind-heat coughs. Wind-cold coughs are coughs after catching a cold, which have a more acute onset and occur more often in winter and spring, with a predominantly wet cough or a small amount of thin white sputum, a heavy, muffled cough, a stuffy, runny nose, fever, headache, a light tongue and a non-red throat. In contrast, the wind-heat cough is dry with little sputum, with a loud cough, a stuffy nose and runny nose, often accompanied by fever and sweating, sore throat, and a red tongue. Other coughs are accompanied by reluctance to eat or nausea after meals and a thick tongue coating, which are caused by dysfunction of the spleen and stomach. When you have a cough, you should pay attention not to eat spicy and fried foods, but to eat more meat, fresh vegetables and fruits. With the growing concern about cough, the causes of cough and its treatment have been studied in Europe and the United States in the past 20 years. In 2009, the Asthma Group of the Chinese Academy of Respiratory Diseases organized domestic experts to develop a draft guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of cough to standardize the reasonable diagnosis and treatment of cough by clinicians. Cough is usually divided into 3 categories according to time: acute cough, subacute cough and chronic cough. Acute cough lasts <3 weeks, subacute cough 3-8 weeks, and chronic cough ≥8 weeks. 1. Acute cough: The common cold is the most common cause of acute cough. Other causes include acute bronchitis, acute sinusitis, allergic rhinitis, acute attacks of chronic bronchitis, and bronchial asthma (asthma for short). 2. Subacute cough: The most common causes are post-cold cough (also known as post-infectious cough), bacterial sinusitis, asthma, etc. 3. Chronic cough: Chronic cough has more causes and can usually be divided into two categories: one is for those with clear lung lesions on imaging, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, lung cancer, etc. The other category is those with no obvious lung abnormalities and only cough as the main or only symptom, which is usually referred to as chronic cough of unknown origin (referred to as chronic cough). Common causes of chronic cough include cough variant asthma (CVA), postnasal drip syndrome (PNDs), eosinophilic bronchitis (EB), and gastroesophageal reflux cough (GERC), which account for 70% to 95% of chronic cough in respiratory medicine outpatients. Other rare etiologies such as chronic bronchitis, bronchiectasis, endobronchial tuberculosis, allergic cough, and psychogenic cough. For different causes of cough, clinicians can identify the cause of most cough patients through careful history taking, physical examination and corresponding ancillary tests, and take appropriate treatment measures according to the different causes. The most common cause of acute cough is the common cold, which is often associated with postnasal drip. Therefore, symptomatic treatment is the mainstay, with medications including decongestants (to reduce postnasal drip), anti-allergic drugs and cough suppressants, and antibacterial drugs are generally not needed. The incidence of asthma (CVA) is increasing year by year, indicating that environmental factors have a significant impact on allergic cough. In these patients, the standard treatment of bronchial asthma should be accompanied by a reduction of food irritation to the patient's respiratory tract, such as avoidance of excessively spicy foods, high-alcohol spirits, and in some patients with a clear history of food allergy, avoidance of allergenic foods after the onset of the disease and during treatment. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in gastroesophageal reflux cough (GERC), which is caused by reflux of gastric acid and other gastric contents into the esophagus and can be accompanied by trace aspiration leading to chronic cough and throat discomfort. Coffee and smoking. Medications are commonly used for acid suppressants (e.g. omeprazole or other similar drugs), gastric stimulants (e.g. morpholine, etc.), and in patients with underlying gastroduodenal disease (chronic gastritis, gastric ulcer, duodenitis or ulcer) with H. pylori infection, a combination of appropriate treatments is required. Cough is a common disease, but patients with cough should pay full attention to its associated causes, go to the hospital in a timely manner, find out the cause of cough through standardized medical procedures, and receive timely, correct and reasonable treatment so as to recover their health as soon as possible.