​How Food Can Make Your Back Pain Worse or Better

How Food Can Make Your Back Pain Worse or Better

12/5/2017

By
Dr. Masoud Shamaeizadeh, DC

When patients come to my office here at Soft Touch Chiropractic in Porter Ranch, I often ask them to change their diet, and their very first question is, "What does food have to do with my back pain?" Most people understand that if they have a heart problem, for example, they need to change their diet, but what about back pain?

Inflammation in the body caused by food can mean the difference between walking to your chiropractor or crawling to your chiropractor. Sometimes the level of pain is directly correlated with levels of inflammation in the body. There are foods that are highly inflammatory which will cause pain or will aggravate pain. The top four culprits are:

1. White flour
2. Sugar
3. Animal fat (meat, dairy)
4. Alcohol

Most patients exclaim, "That's everything I eat! What am I suppose to eat?" Generally patients with diets that contain large amounts of the items above will tend to have greater back problems. To those patients, I recommend a plant-based diet which includes large amounts of green leafy vegetables, a variety of season vegetables, fruit and legumes. Even a plant-based diet may create some inflammation if you have food allergies; so you might check what you are allergic to. If you don't know, be sure to check first. There are several labs that offer allergy testing.

If you have back pain and you are consuming the four ingredients above, try eliminating them from your diet; that simple change, along with chiropractic care can alleviate the pain.

Watch the following video produced by Dr. Masoud Shamaeizadeh that details how food can make you worse or better.