You Feel What You Eat
You’ve heard the saying “you are what you eat,” right? Well, you also “feel what you eat”. If you eat foods that cause inflammation, you’ll have more pain. Your diet is a huge factor affecting inflammation in the body. And inflammation is a context in which your brain thinks pain signals are more important. Inflammation makes your pain sensing nerves more sensitive and jumpy.
The way certain foods cause inflammation is not completely understood, but it is certain that many foods affect the gut microbiome (the mix of good bacteria and microbes that are supposed to be in your gut) This allows toxins to be released into the bloodstream. The toxins causes the immune system to rev up and release additional unnecessary proteins, which causes inflammation. All this activity is picked up and communicated with your brain.
So we “feel what we eat” because food-caused inflammation increases pain
But what can you do about it?
The most effective way to slow down the immune system and reduce inflammation is to change your diet. Yep, it’s that simple. Changing what you eat will significantly improve your pain.
The second way is to add back and support good bacteria with probiotics and prebiotics. (Probiotics are strains of good bacteria. Prebiotics specifically feed the good microbes in the gut.) Taking probiotics has been shown to reduce inflammation and symptoms of several pain syndromes including irritable bowel.
The third thing you can do is to avoid taking antibiotics, unless absolutely necessary as decided by your healthcare provider.
The fourth and theoretically the most fun is to get regular exercise. This helps in digestion, and also helps support the gut microbiome.
Step ONE
I cover all these steps in detail in my e-book, When It Hurts Down There, but here I’ll just briefly expand on Step One.
To slow down the immune system and reduce inflammation you simply need to avoid the foods most linked to inflammation-related pain. These are gluten, refined carbs, fried foods, processed meats, red meat, and processed fats.
Again, we’re not really sure how all of these foods cause inflammation, but the effects on the blood and body stress chemicals have been shown in multiple scientific studies.
I understand that avoiding all of these foods completely would be very difficult. So, the idea isn’t to remove them from your diet entirely, but to reduce your general intake. The body is meant to have some amount of inflammation reaction to fight off infections, but you want to lower the unnecessary activation of the system. A thoughtful diet without foods that trigger trouble in your gut can lead to less pain, a healthier lifestyle, and a happier you!
References:
Lee Y, Park K. Irritable bowel syndrome: Emerging paradigm in pathophysiology. World J Gastroenterology. 2014;20(10):2456-2469.
Basu A, Devaraj S, Jialal I. Dietary factors that promote or retard inflammation. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2006;26:995-1001.
Fritsche K. The science of fatty acids and inflammation. Adv Nutr. 2015;6:293S-301S
MacDermott RP. Treatment of irritable bowel syndrome in outpatients with inflammatory bowel disease using a food and beverage intolerance, food and beverage avoidance diet. Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2007;13(1):91-96.
Moloney RD, Johnson AC, O’Mahoney SM, Dinan TG, Greenwood-Van Meerveld B, Cryan JF. Stress and the microbiota-gut-brain axis in visceral pain: relevance to irritable bowel syndrome. CNS Neurosci Ther. 2016;22(2):102-117.
Tillisch K. The effects of gut microbiota on CNS function in humans. Gut Microbes. 2014;5(3):404-410.
El-Salhy M, Gundersen D. Diet in irritable bowel syndrome. Nutrition Journal. 2015;14:36.
