To Your Health
January, 2025 (Vol. 19, Issue 01) |
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Diet and Chronic Pain
By Editorial Staff
One reason diet is associated with chronic pain is because added weight from eating a poor diet puts more pressure on muscles and joints, and makes recovery from an injury take longer. The solution seems common-sense: eat more sensibly and lose the weight, reducing the incidence of chronic pain. But there's much more to the story.
Research suggests a healthy diet can reduce chronic pain regardless of weight. The study, involving more than 650 women, evaluated diet quality over a 12-month window with a 40-question food frequency questionnaire that gathered data on what participants ate and how often they ate it.
Researchers discovered that better diet quality was associated with lower levels of body pain, particularly in women. Even more significantly, being overweight or obese did not influence the relationship between diet quality and pain.
These findings don't mean you should ignore your weight, particularly if you're overweight or obese. After all, excess weight and fat is linked to numerous negative health outcomes. But don't ignore dietary changes, because as this study suggests, it's associated with lower levels of pain, regardless of how much weight you have to lose. Talk to your doctor for more information.
