Your Diet May Be Causing Your Back Pain

Low back pain is a common health concern. Causes include strained muscles and nerve and vertebrae damage. Inflammation linked to diet can play a key role, too.

Low back pain has become a global problem, causing more disability than any other condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the U.S., researchers found that about one in four Americans reported pain in their lower back over three months. While there are a host of potential reasons back discomfort develops, from injuries to diseases, often the problem doesn’t have an obvious cause. There’s evidence, however, that what you eat could be an overlooked cause of your pain

Certain lifestyle factors have long been known to raise the risk for low back pain. For example, a lack of exercise, a sedentary job, and being overweight are linked to the problem. Research also suggests eating a diet loaded with pro-inflammatory foods may be a key factor in promoting low back pain in many people, suggesting that cleaning up your diet could be an effective, non-drug treatment.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Yoga for Back Pain

Inflammation and health

Inflammation isn’t always a bad thing. It’s a natural reaction from your immune system if you have an infection or injury. For example, if you cut your hand, white blood cells are quickly sent to the area to help fight any infection, resulting in swelling and redness for a while.

The problem with inflammation occurs when it becomes chronic, something that can happen if your body is reacting to harmful substances it repeatedly encounters, such as cigarette smoke. Now, research shows certain foods can trigger your body to produce ongoing inflammation.

Chronic inflammation can produce a host of negative effects. Over time, it may damage blood vessels and nerves and even raise your risk of certain cancers, diabetes, and other serious, chronic diseases.

For example, a study by Harvard researchers, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, concluded regularly eating pro-inflammatory foods (such as red meat, processed meat, and organ meat; refined carbohydrates like white bread and white rice; and sugar-rich desserts and sweetened beverages) raises your risk of heart disease by almost 40 percent, compared to eating a diet that includes foods that lower inflammation. Anti-inflammatory foods include green leafy vegetables, dark yellow vegetables, tea, whole grains, and fruit.

Now, a study by University of Pennsylvania researchers, presented at the Association of Academic Physiatrists Annual Meeting, revealed evidence that foods that promote systemic inflammation could be the chief contributing factor of low back pain in a significant number of adults.

The back pain and pro-inflammatory food link

“It is relevant to know that pro-inflammatory diets may be associated with painful conditions because that could pave the way to novel dietary intervention approaches. Traditionally, diet has been mostly just looked at as a means to lose weight, but its potential could extend way beyond that,” said physical therapist and University of Pennsylvania researcher Valerio Tonelli Enrico, PT.

For their study, the research team used the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII), which provides a score of the potential of certain foods to cause inflammation. They examined a sample of diets and health status from almost 4,000 adults, taken from the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination (NHANES) survey database, and analyzed associations between the research subjects’ DII scores and their incidence of low back pain.

The results showed the people with the higher DII scores, indicating they ate more pro-inflammatory foods, had significantly more low back pain. Even when the researchers adjusted the data for health status, income, gender, and physical activity levels, the results were the same: Eating more pro-inflammatory foods was linked to more low back pain

Eating a healthier diet could help prevent or treat back pain

“An anti-inflammatory diet has been shown to help a spectrum of health-related outcomes, preventing a variety of chronic diseases that plague our society. Our study puts a spotlight on diet in the clinical approach for chronic low back pain, calling on physicians for a more thorough screening on food consumption, and opening up the potential for fruitful multi-disciplinary cooperation that is pivotal to addressing complex pain syndromes,” Enrico explained. “It also opens the door for physicians to have an open dialogue with their patients about the important role of diet and health, which is a crucial step not only towards recovery, but also towards prevention.”

This is a key point because low back pain may not have an obvious cause, such as a serious injury or disease. And, while back discomfort may resolve on its own over time, low back pain can recur and has too often been treated with prescription drugs, including opioids, which can mask pain but don’t solve the problem and may lead to addiction, the CDC points out.

“For patients, the idea of transforming one’s food intake into an intervention that could help cope with pain is both simple and empowering. As we all depend on food, and consume it multiple times a day, knowing that adjusting this intake could help reduce inflammation and pain is fascinating,” said Enrico. “Similarly, this finding also has positive implications for physicians. It opens the doors to a complementary intervention that is drug-free and thus, yields no side effects.”

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: The Anti-Inflammatory Diet