Spine and Back Pain and Depression and Cognition Helped by Anti-Inflammatory Diet

August 09, 2022

Inflammation is good and normal…in certain circumstances like defending a part of the body that is injured or infected. Inflammation is damaging...like when it persists too long. Inflammation is a cellular level event and may contribute to a multitude of chronic diseases: cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, lung, mental, metabolic, neurodegenerative, and more. (1) Old Mill Chiropractic works to lessen inflammation’s impact on the health of our St Peters chiropractic patients suffering with issues like back pain, headache/migraine, depression and even cognitive issues associated with Alzheimer’s. An anti-inflammatory diet plays a role in this effort.

INFLAMMATION LINKED TO BACK PAIN, DEPRESSION, ALZHEIMER’S…

A systematic review and meta-analysis of existing medical studies concerning the role of inflammation and depression found that a pro-inflammatory diet was associated with a bigger risk of depression symptoms and diagnosis contrasted with those who ate an anti-inflammatory diet. (2) Another study suggested a link between low back pain and pro-inflammatory diets as well. A study of 7346 people described that those reporting the highest inflammatory diet had higher risk of reporting low back pain, too. (3) Connections between diet, nutrition and Alzheimer’s disease have been described. The good news is that nutrition was described as being able to control the immune system and even modify the neuroinflammatory processes related to Alzheimer’s and age-related cognition issues. (4) These descriptions show just how extensive inflammation can be.

…EVEN MIGRAINE

Migraine as primary headache is projected to affect 14.4% of people and ranked as the greatest contributor to disability in people over 50 years of age. Migraine is studied a great deal as to what causes it but still remains a bit of a mystery. Researchers summarized that many factors are involved: vascular function, trigeminovascular pathway activation, pro-inflammatory and oxidative stats may contribute to migraine pain. Studies associating migraine to the role of dietary interventions are not many, but a recent data search found that Ketogenic diet, modified Atkins diets, and low glycemic diets may improve mitochondrial function and energy metabolism, decrease CGRP (calcitonin gene related peptide) level, stabilize serotonin, and suppress neuroinflammation. Via inflammation and irregular hypothalamic function, obesity and headaches (including migraines) may be linked. The inflammatory link emerged in the published papers. Dietary interventions like supplementing with essential fatty acids (decreasing omega-6 and increasing omega-3 which were documented to affect inflammation) were discussed as helpful. (5) Old Mill Chiropractic knows the power diet and nutrition may have in disease processes like migraine, back pain, depression, and cognition.

ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DIET

Old Mill Chiropractic also knows many of us don’t like the word diet. It often reminds us of things what we can’t have. A good diet allows a lot of good food though. Basic guidelines for an anti-inflammatory diet design consist of eating lean meat, eggs, fish, fruit, legumes, coffee, tea, vegetables, honey and plain dairy like milk, yogurt, hard cheeses, kefir with limited intake of red meat and other dairy and sugar while staying away from canned/processed food, sweetened drinks, and alcohol. (6) We are sure our chiropractic patients can manage this kind of diet!

CONTACT Old Mill Chiropractic

Listen to the PODCAST with Dr. James Cox on the Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes how inflammation and the immune system work and how chiropractic care and the Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management may well help.       

Schedule your next St Peters chiropractic appointment with Old Mill Chiropractic. If inflammation has overstayed its good and normal welcome, we can talk about taking some steps toward a more beneficial anti-inflammatory diet. 

 
Old Mill Chiropractic presents new studies about the benefits of an anti-inflammatory diets for back pain sufferers as well as those with depression and cognitive decline issues.