Different foods for different kinds of pain
Research studies have revealed special effects of certain foods and nutrients, as we will see in detail in the posts that follow. Rice or peppermint oil, for example, can soothe your digestive tract. Ginger and the herb feverfew can prevent migraines, and coffee sometimes cures them. Natural plant oils can reduce arthritis pain. Cranberry juice can fight the pain of bladder infections. Vitamin Вб can even increase your pain resistance, to name just a few.
Whether we are talking about back pain, migraines, cancer pain, or anything else, there are three basic principles to using foods to fight pain.
I will spell them out briefly here and, in the posts that follow, will show you how to apply them.
1. Choose pain - safe foods. In headaches, joint pains, and digestive
pains, for example, the key is not so much in adding new foods as in find
ing out which foods have caused your pain and avoiding them, while
building your meals from foods that virtually never cause symptoms for
anyone.
In the Lancet of October 12,1991, arthritis researchers announced the results of a carefully controlled study that tested how avoiding cer - tain foods could reduce inflammation. Often the culprits were as seem - ingly innocent as a glass of milk, a tomato, wheat bread, or eggs. By avoiding specific foods, many patients improved dramatically: pain diminished or went away, and joint stiffness was no longer the routine morning misery. The same benefit has been seen for migraines. While there are also benefits to be gained from certain supplements, particu - larly natural anti - inflammatory plant oils, identifying your own sensitivi - ties is an enormously important first step.
Sugar may affect pain, at least in certain circumstances. As we will see in post 12, researchers at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Minneapolis tested its effects on a group of young men. They attached a clip to the web of skin between their fingers and wired the clip to an electrical stimulator. They gradually increased the voltage and asked the men to say when they felt any pain and at what point they found it intolerable. As the researchers then infused a dose of sugar, the volunteers found that they could feel the pain sooner and more intensely. The researchers then tested diabetics, who tend to have more sugar in their blood than other people, and found that they too were more sensitive to pain than other people.
What would it mean if some part of your diet, whether it was sugar or anything else, caused pain to hurt just a bit extra, without your realiz - ing what was causing this problem? In fact, many foods trigger pain and aggravate inflammation. Choosing pain - safe foods is as important as bringing the special healing foods in.
2. Add soothing foods that ease your pain. Foods that improve blood
flow are of obvious importance in angina, back pain, and leg pains.
Foods that relieve inflammation help your joints to cool down. Other
foods balance hormones and will come to your rescue if you have menstrual pain, endometriosis, fibroids, or breast pain. Hormone - adjusting foods have also been the subject of considerable research in cancer, as we will see.
3. Use supplements if you need them. I encourage you to explore the benefits of herbs, extracts, and vitamins that can treat painful conditions. Some have been in use for a long time and have been tested in good research studies, as we will see. Do this under your doctor’s care, so that a nutritional approach can be integrated with other medical measures as needed, and so that you have a solid diagnosis.
