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Chiropractic Nutrition

Our chiropractic patients find chiropractic spinal adjustments or manipulation just the thing for reducing back pain, neck pain, extremity joint pain and even headaches. Additionally, they usually find that chiropractic improves their posture and helps provide the strength and flexibility required for all their activities, whether at work or during sports. At Advance Chiropractic & Acupuncture Clinic, Hertford, we like to go the extra mile for you. Our experience with patients tells us that the food we eat can also have a major impact on joint and muscle pain, stiffness and inflammation. That’s why we support your chiropractic care with solid advice from functional medicine on which foods strongly contribute to pain and inflammation, together with advice on those foods which have an anti-inflammatory action and reduce both pain and inflammation. Your Hertford chiropractor is committed to helping you improve all aspects of your life. Call Advance Clinic today and choose life over pain.

Nutrition: We’ve Come A Long Way

Once upon a time, most of what we now find in our local supermarket just wasn’t available. All of those processed and packaged foods, chock full of sugar, refined grains and trans fats didn’t exist. It’s sometimes useful to take a step back and see that the way we live (and eat) now wasn’t always so.

Of course, the history of food production is a whole story in itself. Suffice it to say, the way we eat now is really the product of the last 100 to maybe 150 years, a mere blip in time. Even our grain-based diet has only been around for the last 10,000 years. This might seem a long time, but in the context of 1,000,000 plus years of human history, it really isn’t. Prior to the advent of agriculture roughly 10,000 years ago, the food we ate was largely unprocessed and consisted mostly of meat, fish, vegetables, fruits and nuts and seeds.

An historical perspective is always useful. Sometimes it helps us to see that the way we eat now is, well, just the way we eat now. It was not always thus.

The key question for us at this time is what effect might our modern way of eating have on our health, including on the health of our joints and muscles?

Chronic Inflammation: What Modern Processed Food Does to Us

Simply put, all foods and beverages that we consume have one of two effects on the body:

1. Pro-inflammatory or
2. Anti-inflammatory

Again put simply, the basic distinction here is between foods which have higher amounts of anti-inflammatory omega 3 essential fatty acids, and those containing more pro-inflammatory omega 6 essential fatty acids. In reality, it’s a little more complex than this, but the omega3/omega 6 distinction is a useful way of identifying foods which might be more beneficial for us and those which aren’t.

The fact is that most of what most of us eat most of the time these days is skewed very much towards the pro-inflammatory end of the spectrum. In other words, the food we eat tends to contain large amounts of pro-inflammatory omega 6 fats and much lower levels of anti-inflammatory omega 3 fats.

Our ancestors omega 3/6 ratio would have been a healthy 1:1 or 1:2. With our modern, inflammatory diet, the ratio is more like 1:10 or even as high as 1:20.

The main culprits that drive our omega 6-laden inflammatory diet are:

1. Refined/unrefined sugar.
2. Refined flour and grains generally (not just gluten-containing grains, such as wheat).
3. Highly processed oils, such as rapeseed, sunflower, safflower and others.
4. Trans fats

All of the above are found in abundance in modern, processed foods. And the upshot of our current dietary habits is that we’re consistently triggering inflammation and therefore pain in our bodies. Some of us will, of course, be more susceptible to this than others, but the effects appear to be insidious in many people.

The chronic inflammation that results from a chronically ingested, highly inflammatory diet appears to be one of the critical factors involved in the steep rise in what we term ‘the diseases of modern civilisation’. These chronic, degenerative diseases and states include:

1. Cardiovascular disease, including angina, strokes and heart attacks.
2. Metabolic syndrome, a pre-diabetic state.
3. Diabetes, both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
4. Obesity and overweight.
5. Autoimmune disease, including psoriasis, MS, coeliac’s and inflammatory bowel disease.
6. Neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimers.
7. Hormonal imbalances, including stress hormone and sex hormone imbalances.
8. Inflammatory arthritis, osteoarthritis and muscle pain and stiffness.

Chronic inflammation is now perceived as the common denominator linking all of these conditions and states. It’s the underlying factor in all of them.

Inflammatory food provokes inflammation and an inflamed state in many people. If this type of food is standard for you, the likelihood is you’ll be inflamed all or most of the time. More inflammation means more pain, including more muscle and joint pain. Wouldn’t you want to support the pain and stiffness-relieving effects of the treatment your Hertford chiropractor provides with an anti-inflammatory diet? Dietary change could strongly reinforce the positive effects of your chiropractic care.

An Anti-inflammatory Diet Works Beautifully With Your Chiropractic Care

Advance Clinic’s patients can testify to the benefits of treatment from their chiropractor: substantial reductions in pain and stiffness; better posture; greater flexibility; and improved sports performance etc.

For many patients, it’s the reductions in joint and muscle pain and stiffness which are of the most importance. For some patients, the relief from these symptoms can be a life-changing experience.

At issue is whether the relief gained is temporary or proves longer lasting. This is where you have an important role. You can take charge and make the beneficial changes to your diet that may well help with longer term relief from pain and stiffness.

Like any other tissues in our body, our joints, ligaments, tendons and muscles require good quality nutrition if they’re to function correctly. If we’re providing our body tissues with poor-quality nutrition from refined and processed foods, we can expect poor performance and perhaps more pain and stiffness. That’s for now. If we’re doing this long term, then it could be that we’re also hastening degenerative changes in those tissues.

Your Hertford chiropractor is committed to helping you gain and maintain optimum spinal and other joint and muscle health. Chiropractic techniques are a wonderful means to this end.

In addition to our superlative chiropractic care, if you’re interested, we’ll provide you with the latest, scientifically-grounded nutritional advice based on functional medicine principles. If you make the changes, it’s not only your spine, joints and muscles that will benefit. Good nutrition goes to every part of your body and mind.

Advance Clinic chiropractic: quality food for your spine, joints, muscles and more.