How Your Diet Can Assist In Pain Management
Pain management is a key part of helping you life a pain-free life. One of the tools for pain management is a medically developed weight loss program.
A healthy diet can have dramatic impacts on pain management and a healthy overall lifestyle. Curious how? Simply read further!
How does diet affect pain management?
Studies are increasingly showing links between diet, lifestyle and pain management. For example studies show that a diet that stresses vegetables and fruit helps reduce pain due to inflammation.
In contrast, the typical American diet which stresses highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates like sugar and starch, has been shown to promote inflammation — a major source of chronic pain.
Laboratory studies have shown links between many foods and pain relief. These include, olive oil, salmon, red grapes, berries, and some spices such as ginger, thyme and cumin. While the evidence on these is not conclusive, eating fresher, healthier foods and reducing the amount of highly processed carbohydrates that you consume can only benefit your health.
Other studies show changes in diet can reduce the pain of conditions like fibromyalgia.
Weight loss and pain management
A healthy diet is integral to a medically developed weight loss plan. And weight loss can have dramatic impacts on pain management.
Just losing five pounds can reduce joint pain in ankles, knees, hips and lower because because they’ll be carrying less of a load. A number of studies show reductions in joint inflammation and pain as a result of weight loss.
The elements of a healthy diet
Weight loss or weight gain is the result of an imbalance in the amount of energy your body takes in the form of food. There are three types of food energy: fat, carbohydrates and protein. We need all three to stay healthy, but the proportions are important.
Fats are the most energy-dense of the three, and the hardest to convert into energy. Protein is the easiest to break down into usable energy, but it’s also contains the least energy per unit of mass.
Carbohydrates are in the middle: more energy dense than protein, but easier to convert into energy than fat.
When you’re exercising, or even just moving around for your daily routine, your body turns first to its stores of carbohydrates for energy. Only after there are insufficient carbohydrate stores in the form of blood sugars, starches and other sources, does it turn to burning fat.
An effective weight loss program focuses on providing your body with the essential nutrients it needs to maintain good health, encouraging your body to burn fat while maintaining muscle.
Foods for a healthy lifestyle
There really is no secret to the foods that are healthiest for you, promote a healthy lifestyle and help in pain management. Fresh fruits and vegetables, without preservatives and additives, are healthiest for you to eat. Fortunately in our modern economy, they’re easier to find at a reasonable price.
Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids are good for improving heart health, providing a range of nutrients and may also help reduce inflammation, a key component of pain management.
Foods to avoid
As stated, highly processed foods do not contribute to a healthy lifestyle and may make pain management more difficult. Packaged foods and those with a large amount of processed flour, sugars and especially corn syrup glucose, are very easy for your body to convert to fat.
Generally, to lose weight and move to a more healthy lifestyle, cut back on carbohydrates — sugars and starches.
Go beyond the pain
Instead of thinking only about managing pain, try thinking in terms of living pain free through a healthy lifestyle. A medically proven healthy diet that can lead you to your optimal weight and body condition is the first step.
For more information on pain management in Sandy Utah, give me a call at In2It Medical.