Healthy eating Directly Eases Chronic Pain, Study finds – Self-reliant of Weight Loss
Adelaide, Australia – A new study from the University of South Australia (UniSA) reveals that improving diet quality can considerably reduce chronic pain and enhance quality of life, even without weight loss. The research, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, challenges conventional wisdom linking pain relief solely to weight reduction and offers a promising new avenue for chronic pain management.
Researchers found that participants experiencing chronic musculoskeletal pain reported decreased pain scores, particularly at the same pain site, after adopting a healthier diet. This improvement in pain was directly associated with better diet quality and wasn’t fully explained by any weight or fat loss experienced during the intervention.While weight loss did correlate with reduced pain, it didn’t account for the full connection between diet and symptom improvement.
“While weight loss helps many people, this study suggests that improving diet quality itself also eases the severity of people’s pain,” stated researcher James Ward. ”This is a very hopeful finding for people living with chronic pain.”
The study involved individuals with moderate overweight or obesity. Participants followed various dietary approaches, focusing on increased consumption of whole, nutrient-rich foods and reduced intake of processed foods.Researchers acknowledge limitations, including the absence of a control group – making it tough to exclude placebo effects or natural fluctuations in pain levels – and the reliance on self-reported pain data. They also note that inflammatory markers like cytokines were not measured, leaving the precise mechanisms behind the observed benefits unclear.
Despite these limitations, the findings underscore the importance of nutrition in pain management. Corresponding author Alison Hill, a senior lecturer in nutrition at UniSA, emphasized the broader implications: ”Eating well isn’t just about long-term disease prevention - it can also have an immediate and tangible impact on how we feel day to day. This study shows that adopting a healthier diet may lead to meaningful reductions in pain which improve overall well-being.”
The research suggests integrating nutritional counseling into treatment plans for chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) could offer a valuable, non-pharmacological approach to improving patient outcomes.