Research shows that adopting a healthy diet can reduce chronic pain. Food will never replace the power of painkillers, but scientists are finding out which foods help reduce pain, and why.
The science at a glance:
Adopting a healthy diet may reduce chronic pain.
The "Western diet" may contribute to pain. A diet high in processed foods and low in natural produce can exacerbate chronic pain.
Supplements like grape seed extract and cocoa show promise in reducing pain.
Could a healthy diet help reduce chronic pain?
Broths, stews, soups, and curries are said to have healing properties in many cuisines around the world. "Let food be thy medicine," as the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates wrote in the 4th century BC.
Modern science gives some credence to these old traditions, supporting the ability of healthy food to support a stronger, more robust body.
A new study shows adopting a healthy diet may reduce the severity of chronic pain. The study, published in the journal Nutrition Research, explored associations between body fat, diet, and pain.
"In our study, higher consumption of core foods — which are your vegetables, fruits, grains, lean meats, dairy and alternatives — was related to less pain, and this was regardless of body weight," said study author Sue Ward, University of South Australia.
"It's common knowledge that eating well is good for your health and wellbeing. But knowing that simple changes to your diet could offset chronic pain, could be life-changing," Ward added.
New study links food choices to pain levels
"Chronic pain is a common and disabling health problem, estimated to affect 20-30% of people worldwide. Those who experience chronic pain often have a higher weight compared to the general population," Ward told DW.
This study of Australian adults explored whether diet was directly linked to body pain, and if factors like weight, or body fat, impacted this relationship.
"Our study found that many participants had high levels of body fat and did not adhere to Australian Dietary Guidelines, so had low diet quality. However, people who followed the guidelines more closely had lower levels of bodily pain," Ward said.
Having more body fat was not correlated with increased bodily pain. Instead, body pain levels were linked with which foods people ate.
But Paul Durham, an expert in pain and biology at Missouri State University, US, was skeptical of these findings.
"The study was not very robust as it wasn't designed with enough power in the statistical analyses to make firm conclusions. It's more like a pilot study," he said.
How is pain influenced by your diet?
Despite his criticisms of the study, Durham agrees diet affects chronic pain and migraine.
"It's well established that higher levels of chronic pain are correlated with lower intake of fruit, vegetables, dairy and unsaturated fats," Durham said.
Durham's big theory is that modern lifestyles of poor-quality diets and sleep deprivation are countering how our bodies evolved to operate healthily.
He thinks that most people living in countries eating the so-called "Western diet", also known as the SAD — Standard American Diet — are in a state of bodily imbalance.
A Western diet is one with high amounts of processed food like pizza and sweets and lacking enough natural produce — fresh vegetables, fruit, grains and certain animal products.
Durham explained that eating such an unhealthy diet has many detrimental effects on the body which act like a "perfect storm to make chronic pain worse".
"With this [Western diet] we're so far off the game that we have chronic inflammation going on. You have messed up metabolism and end up with leaky gut syndrome," Durham said.
The problem is that a Western diet doesn't provide the right nutrients you need for your body. White bread, for example, has "basically no nutritional value" because the wheat kernel — the part which contains the minerals, vitamins, and fiber — is thrown away in the industrial baking process.
Without the right nutrients, our cells and immune system can't break down harmful chemicals we naturally produce all the time.
These chemicals have inflammatory effects on our bodies. At high levels they can exacerbate chronic pain, heart problems, diabetes — you name it.
An unhealthy diet affects the gut microbiome too. Diets lacking natural fibers essentially starve the microbiome, meaning they don't produce important chemicals we need for our bodies.
"We need gut bacteria to make short-chain fatty acids, which are molecules that break down inflammatory molecules in our bodies. We also need bacteria to produce enough neurotransmitters," Durham said.
Finding foods that reduce pain and inflammation
Some researchers are focused on finding the compounds in foods that have the most beneficial impact on health outcomes, and how.
While this field is still emerging, some early work like that from Durham's lab has been promising. They've shown dietary supplements like grape seed extract or cocoa can reduce chronic pain and migraine headaches.
They contain compounds called polyphenols which help break down inflammatory molecules in the body, thereby reducing pain.
But Durham doesn't think dietary supplements or healthier eating are strong enough to be painkillers on their own. Grape seed extract will never replace ibuprofen or tramadol.
"[Dietary supplements] work to restore balance in the body, meaning people with chronic pain who take supplements don't have to rely on pharmaceuticals as much," he said.
It's also likely they will have a "ceiling effect" meaning they probably aren't beneficial to people with healthy diets already.
Researchers are only just beginning to search for links between nutrition and pain outcomes.
Durham's mum once said this about his research: "So what you're doing is spending a lot of money to prove common sense?"
He doesn't disagree.
"That's where I think we're at. A healthy body is about these simple things: healthy diet, sleep, and exercise," he said.