Nutrition is the Chiropractor’s Secret Weapon for Addressing Pain and Inflammation
FEATURE
Todd Singleton
DC
The other day I was picking up lunch at Whole Foods on my way to a game of golf. I ordered two slices of jalapeno pizza, rationalizing that I was shopping at a health food store, so it had to be at least a little bit healthy, right? Well, it was the worst game of golf I've ever played. When I got to the course, I was feeling tired, lethargic, and inflamed, and I wondered, how do people live like this? I know from experience how good it feels to eat a clean and balanced diet. I don’t want to go back to the pain I was in before I made changes to the way I eat.
The experience I had that day speaks to the relationship between nutrition, pain, and inflammation. When you or your patients eat processed foods packed with refined oils, sugar, and chemical additives, your body recognizes that you’ve made a bad move. Recognizing the danger, your body mounts an attack, doing its best to eliminate the threat and repair any damage that has been caused. It sends in a full cavalry of red and white blood cells, healing fluids, and reparative proteins. When you think about it, the body is smarter than you think. It senses a “real and present danger” and responds in the best way it knows how.
The problem is that many people eat the same inflammatory foods day after day—a doughnut and coffee for breakfast, a slice of pizza for lunch, and then a box of macaroni and cheese for dinner. When this happens, the body doesn’t know to call off the attack. A problem that began with inflammation of the gut spreads through muscles, connective tissues, tendons, and ligaments, until your patients feel so bad that they can’t really remember having ever felt any better. As tissues become chronically inflamed, fibrin scar tissue develops. Over time, fibrin builds up and causes adhesions that start to pinch delicate nerve tissue, sending urgent pain signals to the brain.1 At this point, your patients know that they need help. They turned to you because they’re feeling sick, sore, and desperate for relief.
The good news is that you can reverse this entire process by going to the source. If you can work with your patients to teach them how to eat a clean and balanced diet, you’ll eliminate the cause of the inflammation and solve the problem permanently. This will help ensure that your adjustments really work— your patients will feel better for longer, and they’ll be more satisfied with your care. Patients always respond better to chiropractic treatments when combined with an anti-inflammatory diet.
D. D. Palmer wrote that chiropractors are responsible for managing patients’ thoughts, toxins, and trauma.2 Normally, chiropractors focus on healing and correcting physical trauma, but they neglect the role that toxic processed foods can have on the body. Our patients need us to do better. If we really want to get to the root of our patients’ problems and provide results that last a lifetime, we need to offer nutrition-based solutions that really work. All the way back at the turn of the twentieth century, D. D. Palmer recognized something that modern medicine is only beginning to comprehend— that anti-inflammatory nutrition is the foundation for a healthy life.
While dietary experts disagree about everything from plant versus animal protein to cholesterol in eggs, everyone knows that fresh, unprocessed fruits and vegetables are non-negotiable. Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables are particularly valuable, though you should encourage your patients to “eat the rainbow” of fruits and vegetables every day.3 For best results, try to get your patients to eat a full two pounds of fruits and vegetables each day, starting with breakfast.4 This might sound challenging, but the results will make the effort worth it.
When you teach your patients what to eat, you’ll also need to teach them what to avoid. To beat inflammation, your patients will need to steer clear of processed oils, flours, and sugars, as well as all preservatives, stabilizers, and artificial flavors and colors. Processed foods run the gamut. They include ingredients that have been cured, milled, pasteurized, chemically derived, and altered in every way you can imagine. While you might be able to identify junk food as clearly “processed,” this category also includes most refined pastas, breads, sugary cereals, hot dogs, ice cream, fries, and, yes, even the pizza at Whole Foods.
Refined oils are a problem because they’re high in omega-6 fatty acids. Ingredients like canola oil are found in everything from potato chips to candy bars, and they can wreak havoc on your patients’ health. Traditionally, our ancestors ate a diet that included far more omega-3 fatty acids. Today, most Americans eat more of the omega-6 fatty acids that contribute to inflammation and disease.5 It isn’t that omega-6 fatty acids are always bad, but the problem is that most Americans consume them in far larger proportions than nature ever intended. While your patients should try to get omega-3 from healthy sources like walnuts and hemp seeds, they’re already getting too much omega-6 from refined oils.
Processed sugars and flours have a high glycemic index. These foods increase blood glucose, which increases insulin production, which increases inflammation.6 Over time, the consumption of these foods is linked with everything from high blood pressure to diabetes. People who eat processed sugars and flours have been shown to consume an additional 500 calories per day, on average.7 Eating white bread, potato chips, and pastries may prompt a brief release of dopamine at the time of consumption, but it will leave your patients feeling sick, tired, and sore.
Food producers add chemical additives to their products for two main reasons: to extend the shelf life of products beyond their natural expiration date and to make poor-quality food taste good. Extending the shelf life of food is a problem because many of the nutrients in fresh foods will deteriorate over time. When your patients eat a box of sugary cereal that’s been on the shelf for years, any nutrients that survived the initial processing phase will have deteriorated past the point that they will benefit them. Plus, the additives used to improve the flavor will mask the fact that the food wasn’t very appetizing to begin with.
Your patients need to know how important it is to focus on eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables while avoiding their inflammatory processed counterparts. This information may seem simple, but many Americans don’t have even a rudimentary knowledge of dietary science. As a chiropractor, you had the opportunity to study nutrition in school. You have the knowledge you need to help your patients get out of pain and stay that way. In my own practice, I’ve seen nutrition change more lives than I can count. In your clinic, you can do the same. You can completely transform your patients’ lives through simple whole-food nutrition.
Dr. Todd Singleton is an author, speaker, and consultant who has been a chiropractor for more than 25 years. He ran the largest MD/DC/PT clinics in Utah before switching to an all-cash nutrition-based model in 2006. Dr. Singleton now spends his time speaking, consulting, and helping chiropractic offices all across the country. For more information, call 801-903-7141 or visit www.ArticlesbyDrSingleton.com.
References
1. Luyendyk, J. P., Schoenecker, J. G., & Flick, M. J. (2018). The multifaceted role of fibrinogen in tissue injury and inflammation. Blood, blood-2018-07-818211.
2. Palmer, D. D. & Palmer, B. J. (1921). The chiropractor ⅛ adjuster. Davenport, I A: The Palmer School of Chiropractic Publishers.
3.Jenkins, D. J. A., Popovich, D. G., Kendall, C. W. C., Vidgen, E., Tariq, N., Ransom, T. P. P., ... Patten, R. (1997). Effect of a diet high in vegetables, fruit, and nuts on serum lipids. Metabolism, 46(5), 530-537.
4.Duthie, S., Duthie, G., R Russell, W., A MKyle, J., Macdiarmid, J., Rungcipamestry, V, ... S Bestwick, C. (2017). Effect of increasing fruit and vegetable intake by dietary intervention on nutritional biomarkers and attitudes to dietary change: A randomised trial. European Journal of Nutrition 57(5), 18551872.
5.Simopoulos A. P. (2002). The importance of the ratio of omega-6 omega-3 essential fatty acids. Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy 56(8), 36579.
6. Harvard Health Publishing. (2018). Glycemic index for 60+ foods: Measuring carbohydrate effects can help glucose management. Harvard School of Medicine. Retrieved from https ://www. health, harvard, edu diseases-and-conditions glycemic-index-and-glycemic-load-for-100-foods.
7. The Associated Press. (2019). Whcit's so bad about processed foods? Scientists offer clues. The New York Times. Retrieved from https:// www.nytimes.com aponline 2019 06 14 health ap-us-med-processed-foods-health.html.
