Friday, August 07, 1998

Can foods help fight pain?

By Tracy Boyd of the Detroit News

Some people consider food to be mere sustenance, while others see it as something to indulge in. It can lend comfort after a bad day, or it can be a threat to one's waistband. But can certain foods actually fight pain? The idea that nutrients in food can indeed lessen or eliminate pain is nothing new in countries such as India or China. But the Western world is just catching on to the notion, proposed in the immensely popular book Foods That Fight Pain (Harmony Books, $25) by Dr. Neal Barnard. What you eat can have a profound effect on pain, Barnard says. By avoiding trigger foods and choosing pain-safe foods, he says, you can control migraines, rheumatoid arthritis, menstrual pain, chest pain and many other kinds of debilitating pain. "We think of pain as something the doctor treats with pills or in an operating room," says Barnard, who is president of the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine and practices in Washington, D.C. "What people don't recognize is that we have emerging treatments that are more powerful and easier than opening a bottle, and that's the foods we eat. Some people can literally cure rheumatoid arthritis or migraines by taking care with their diets." For example, people who suffer from migraines have been taught for years to identify and avoid their own certain "trigger" foods -- substances that almost always provoke a blinding headache. Red wine, chocolate and aged cheese are notorious migraine triggers. By choosing foods other than their triggers, they can manage or even stop completely the debilitating pain. In Foods That Fight Pain, Barnard recommends a diet as free from animal proteins as possible. There are three basic principles to using foods to fight pain, he says: * Choose pain-safe foods. The key often is not in adding new foods but in eliminating those foods that cause pain, while building your diet from foods that virtually never cause symptoms for anyone. * Add soothing foods that ease pain. * Use supplements if you need them. Pain management includes "what you eat and what you don't eat," Barnard says. "There are pain-safe foods and pain-trigger foods. Safe foods, like good cooked greens, rice, chard, cooked orange veggies, cooked yellow veggies and noncitrus fruits act like a bandage for the body." At the Health Unlimited store in Dearborn, employee Marsha McLean sees customers all the time who ask what they can do to feel better and eliminate aches and pains. "I always tell them, you are what you eat," she says. "And without a doubt, what you eat has an effect on what you feel. Nightshade vegetables, for example, are notorious for causing arthritis pain. Nitrates trigger migraines. Some people choose to make significant changes, and they're rewarded with feeling better and lessening pain." Barnard says that the reason diet changes aren't suggested to patients more often is because most physicians are seriously undertrained in nutrition. Family practice physician Dr. Karen Beasley of Schoenherr Family Practice, part of the St. John Health System, says that while many physicians do indeed lack in-depth knowledge of nutrition, there is a case for suggesting dietary changes for patients. "We received virtually no instruction in nutrition" in medical school, Beasley says. "Possibly one or two lectures. But I for one make sure that many of my patients speak with a nutritionist and keep food diaries. "I think that everyone agrees that if you eat a well-balanced diet and avoid excessive sweets and fat, overall you will feel better." Barnard says people who call a dietary approach to pain "experimental" are ill-informed. "Ten years ago it would have been reasonable to call these ideas experimental, but it's not anymore," Barnard says. "We now have studies that give us more than enough basis for encouraging patients to try a dietary approach."

Foods that hurt you

Experts agree that what you eat can affect how you feel. Some foods are triggers for pain; others virtually never contribute to headaches, backaches or other painful conditions. Here, from Dr. Neal Barnard's book Foods That Fight Pain, is a list of common triggers for pain: * Dairy products * Chocolate * Eggs * Citrus fruits * Meat * Wheat (bread, pasta, etc.) * Nuts and peanuts * Tomatoes * Onions * Corn * Apples * Bananas

Pain-safe foods

* Brown rice. * Cooked or dried fruits: cherries, cranberries, pears, prunes (but not citrus fruits, apples, bananas, peaches or tomatoes). * Cooked green, yellow and orange vegetables: artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, chard, collards, lettuce, spinach, string beans, summer or winter squash, sweet potatoes, tapioca. * Water: plain or carbonated forms, such as Perrier. Other beverages, even herbal teas, can be triggers. * Condiments: modest amounts of salt, maple syrup and vanilla extract.

Copyright 1998, The Detroit News