Scientists find link between chronic pain and diet change

Scientists have found that dietary change could be an effective low-cost treatment for people with chronic pain.

Preliminary research from a small pilot study carried out , shows a link between chronic pain and consumption of glutamate, a common flavour enhancer found in western and non-western diets worldwide.

The results, published in the journal Nutrition, demonstrated that when participants cut monosodium glutamate from their diets, their symptoms improved.

"This preliminary research in Kenya is consistent with what I am observing in my chronic pain research here in the US," said a researcher.

"We don't know what exposure is leading to this susceptibility to dietary glutamate, but this pilot study suggests the need for a large-scale clinical trial, since dietary change could be an effective low-cost treatment option for developing countries," a researcher said.

As researchers study glutamate, they are gaining insights into how the chemical works in the human brain and body.

In the brain, glutamate is a common neurotransmitter.

It also can act as an excitotoxin, over-stimulating and damaging or killing nerve cells.

Glutamate is also a naturally occurring chemical in some foods, like soy sauce and parmesan cheese, but is more commonly found as a food additive.

In the Kenya study, the goal was to test whether a dietary intervention could perform as well as or better than over-the-counter medication in relieving pain.

With a sample size of 30 participants, the researchers tested the effects of removing MSG, increasing water intake, or a combination of both, relative to acetaminophen (the main treatment option available in Meru).

The participants experienced chronic pain for at least three months or more and in at least three quadrants of the body.

Similar to what is seen with widespread chronic pain patients in the US, most also suffered from other neurological symptoms, including headaches or migraines, chronic fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and sleep issues.

"This would be incredible if we could impact chronic pain simply by making slight modifications to diet," said a researcher.

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.    

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Drink beetroot juice to lower BP and reduce your risk of heart diseases

Drinking beetroot juice regularly can reduce the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure, a new study has found.

Researchers at University of Guelph in Canada found that dietary nitrate, a compound found in beetroot juice that dilates blood vessels to decrease blood pressure, may reduce over-stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system that occurs with heart disease.

Activation of the sympathetic nervous system include elevated heart rate and blood pressure and blood vessel constriction.

Sympathetic nerve activity (sympathetic outflow) also increases with some forms of cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure and heart failure.

Twenty young adult volunteers participated in two separate testing visits in which they blindly received either a nitrate supplement or a placebo.

On both visits, researchers recorded the blood pressure, heart rate and muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) and measured muscle activity at rest and during handgrip exercise with the participants’ non-dominant hand.
 
Measurements were recorded at the beginning of the visit and then again after the volunteers drank nitrate-rich beetroot juice or a placebo and had rested on their backs for three hours.

MSNA burst rate, denoting the frequency of nerve activity, was lower when the volunteers drank beetroot juice compared to when they drank the placebo. Sympathetic nerve activity also decreased during exercise.

“Surprisingly, no differences in blood pressure were detected at rest or during exercise,” researchers said.

“These results provide proof-of-concept that dietary nitrate supplementation can modulate central sympathetic outflow and suggest that the established cardiovascular benefits of dietary nitrate are likely to involve a neural contribution,” they said.

The research was published in the journal Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

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Poor diet is bad news for asthma

A diet high in sugar, fat and processed food can increase asthma attacks, University of Newcastle researchers have found.

The study shows people who eat foods high in saturated fats are more likely to have asthma attacks, and the fats also reduce the effect of medicines used to treat the disease.

Nutritional biochemist at the university, Lisa Wood, says on the other hand nutritious foods can help ease asthma.

She and her colleagues studied the diets of 99 people with asthma and 61 healthy people.

They scored the diets based on their potential to cause inflammation, which has been linked to over-stimulation of the immune system.

Associate professor Wood says the study participants with asthma were more likely to eat inflammatory diets than those who were healthy.

She explains that previous research shows that eating even a single high-fat meal can cause inflammation in the airways of asthmatics.

Too much fat in the diet causes the body to react as it would to invading bacteria, Dr Wood says, and habitually eating that way causes a chronic problem.

"If you eat a high-fat diet your immune cells will attach to the fatty acids that are in your bloodstream and treat that fat in the same way as they would treat bacteria," Lisa says.

The researchers advise that a diet high in anti-inflammatory foods such as fruit, vegetables, oats and lentils can reduce the risk of asthma attacks.

However, they say more research is needed to establish whether a poor diet is a factor in developing asthma in the first place.

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