Often the food that we eat is a main cause of pain. Next time you eat these foods see how they impact you.
Gluten:
The proteins found in gluten can be hard for many people’s digestive system to break down these proteins, causing damage to part of their intestines called Villi, this is the part of the intestines that gathers nutrients to be absorbed into the body. As the damage occurs over time due to a sensitivity, you lose the ability to absorb vital nutrients into your system, thus leading to a variety of health issues, such as fatigue, anemia, irritable bowl, neuropathy, depression, ADD & ADHD in children and Auto-Immune diseases such as MS, Celiac disease, Hypo/Hyperthyroidism among others. So how does gluten actually cause pain? Well simply put a sensitivity to gluten leads to inflammation and inflammation leads to pain. Most people with chronic pain, especially migraines, have found that by eliminating gluten from their diets it has eased or stopped the pain altogether.
Aspartame:
This artificial sweetener is part of a chemical group called excitotoxins, which activate neurons that can increase your sensitivity to pain. Aspartame has been linked to chronic pain problems such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, stomach issues, arthritis, as well as other health issues such as; brain tumors, brain cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, diabetes, MS, Parkinson?s, Alzheimer?s, lupus, bipolar disorder, and epilepsy. So how does aspartame actually cause pain? Aspartame is a neurotoxin, your brain reacts and detects it as a foreign object and begins to immediately attack it, in turn this cause inflammation which again leads to pain. While you may not be using an artificial sweetener such as aspartame, you will be very surprised to know that a lot drug companies use this in many over the counter and prescribed medications, the biggest being chewable vitamins for children.
Processed foods:
Many processed foods contain what’s known as Trans Fats, these fats do not occur naturally in foods, our bodies do not have a program in the digestive tract to break these Fats down. Processed foods include; ready to eat foods such as crackers, granola bars, instant noodles, fruit snacks, fake butter or margarine, frozen dinners, any type of processed cheeses like cheese in a can, and sadly ketchup. Trans Fats have been linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other chronic conditions. Trans fats can also reduce the healthy response of endothelial cells, the cells that line all of our blood vessels, it can also cause resistance to insulin which leads to diabetes. So how does Trans Fats cause pain? Again just as gluten and aspartame, processed foods/trans fats cause inflammation and inflammation causes pain.
There are many more foods that can lead to chronic pain such as dairy, food additives such as MSG?s, alcohol and excessive amounts of caffeine.
Your best course of action is to research what you are ingesting and eliminate each, one by one until you find out which ones are causing your issues. When you take your health into your own hands and get to the root cause of any inflammation or chronic pain, you may find that you will no longer need to be on any prescribed medications for those issues. And some foods can also help fight the pain!