Did you know that the keto diet can help with chronic pain?
Maybe you’ve started having some aches and pains that just won’t go away and your doctor has told you that losing a little weight might help.
Or perhaps you have been living with daily chronic pain for a long time.
Imagine how great it would feel to no longer have achy, sore or painful joints and muscles. To be able to get up in the morning, get out of a chair or taking a walk without suffering from pain.
What if you could cut back on the amount of narcotics or other pain relievers that you find you have to take on a daily basis to function?
If you having been suffering from chronic pain this probably sounds wonderful and you wonder how can you possibly experience some of these benefits yourself. I’ll let you in on something that few people talk about…..
The Keto Diet, or even a low carb diet, can help reduce or even eliminate your chronic pain!
Lots of people have found their way to the keto diet in an effort to lose some weight. But, if you suffer from chronic pain, did you know that that the keto diet might also help to improve that as well?
What Is Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain is often defined as any pain lasting more than 12 weeks or pain that persists long after an injury is healed.
The pain you feel when you break a bone or hurt your back is acute pain. It is the pain that appears at the time of injury that lets us know that there is an injury. Chronic pain is the pain that you feel months or even years after the broken bone has healed or the back injury is supposed to have resolved. It continues beyond the period that the pain from that injury is expected to last.
Chronic pain can also be pain that occurs without an injury being present such as in fibromyalgia.
Perhaps you are someone who is suffering from chronic pain from arthritis, a back injury, fibromyalgia or even diabetic neuropathy.
Do you wake up first thing in the morning and are greeted by a sore back, stiff and painful joints, feet that feel like they are burning?
You might take your daily dose of medication…..NSAIDs to help with inflammation and stiffness, narcotics or other medications (Tramadol/Ultram, Tylenol, etc) to help with the pain or perhaps Neurontin/Gabapentin to try to reduce the neuropathic pain .
You’ve tried heating pads and ice packs.
You’ve visited chiropractors.
You’ve done your home exercises and all the other things your doctor has instructed you to do but the pain still lingers on. You’ve tried all the things your doctor has told you to do and still the pain continues on.
As of 2016 over 50 million people were suffering from some form of chronic pain with 20 million of them having their pain impact their daily lives. 8% of the population has pain that is so debilitating that they are unable to work.
Perhaps you are one of those 50 million people.
If you are did you know that the keto diet or even a low carb diet can help reduce the pain you are feeling?
What Causes Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain is thought to be caused by over excited neurons in the nervous system. This would explain why the pain continues long after the injury is healed or why there is more pain than one might normally have with an injury.
Over the years researchers discovered that the anti-seizure medications that help reduce the excitability of neurons in the brain that cause seizures were also effective in treating neuropathic pain (pain that is caused by some type of damage to the nervous system). This is one reason why Neurontin/gabapentin is used to treat neuropathy.
Metabolic syndromes can also contribute to chronic pain.
What Is A Metabolic Syndrome?
Metabolic syndrome is a group of conditions that occur together and often included increase blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, excess weight and high blood lipid levels (cholesterol and triglycerides). These conditions increase your risk of type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease.
It can also increase inflammation in the body which attacks joints and the small nerves in the skin and body. While excess weight can wear on joints causing chronic arthritis it’s also noted that arthritis pain sufferers will can have pain in non weight bearing joints such as the hands, elbows, shoulders, etc. This inflammation also affects the small nerves in the skin and causes a common side effect found in many diabetics….diabetic neuropathy.
Those with fibromyalgia also experience increased pain sensations that appear to be associated with metabolic syndrome.
By following a keto or low carb diet you can help reduce the excitability of nerves which in turn helps to decrease the pain you are feeling.
How Can The Keto Diet Help To Reduce Pain?
The keto diet helps to reduce pain in two ways. First it helps to reduce inflammation that leads to pain. Second it helps to reduce the amount the amount of pain you are currently feeling.
During the keto diet your body uses fat instead of sugar (carbohydrates) for energy. Having high amounts of sugar in the body causes a cascading effect.
First high amounts of insulin is made to help lower the levels of sugar found in the blood.
This then raises inflammation markers.
The blood vessels that line the body become inflammed and this causes the body to create free radicals to help combat this effect. Free radicals, also called oxidative stress, are molecules that are missing an electron. Electrons make up each atom in that molecule and they like to travel in pairs. If something occurs that causes them to be unpaired (such as the damage that inflammation creates) then they go searching for another electron to buddy up with. It doesn’t matter where it comes from but these free radicals will take another electron from other atoms/molecules to create their pair. They will pull what they need from healthy cells, proteins that make up your body and even your DNA to get what they need. This in turn causes damage to these parts of your body.
Finally, after this damage has been occurring in your body for a while chronic disease begins to set in.
Reducing the amount of carbohydrates you eat by following a keto or low carb diet means you are taking in less sugar. Lower amounts of sugar mean that your body does not need to over produce insulin to clear it up. When you don’t have high levels of sugar in your blood then the blood vessels are not inflammed and free radicals are not created ultimately leading to not causing long term damage to cells, proteins and even your DNA.
While this is not the only way that inflammation occurs it is one that everyone will experience during their lifetime.
Other sources that can contribute to inflammation include having a sedentary lifestyle, high stress levels, smoking and even for some people having a family history of chronic inflammatory diseases. While you can’t change your family history you can reduce stress, stop smoking and get more exercise in. However, what you choose to eat plays a big part in reducing or avoiding this inflammation too.
But what happens if the damage is already done and you are suffering from pain now? Can the keto diet help to reduce the pain you currently feel?
Yes it can!
Not only does being in ketosis help with reducing inflammation but it can also help reduce pain and pain perception.
The Keto Diet Helps To Reduce Pain Perception:
The keto diet can help decrease the activity of the nervous system which helps to reduce the perception of pain. Have you heard of people with uncontrolled epilepsy being put on the keto diet to help them? The keto diet helps to decrease the over activity found in the neurons which leads to having fewer seizures. These neurons also pass the pain signals through your body. If the activity level is decreased then this helps the person to experience lower levels of pain.
The pain that is present might not have stopped but it changes. An example of this might be if you are having pain that is 7 out of 10 on the pain scale on a daily basis. You start the keto diet and then you find that you have pain that is 3 out of 10 a daily basis. If you are a chronic pain sufferer having less pain is a very good thing and the keto diet can help with this.
The keto diet helps to increase the amount of a substance called adenosine in the body. Adenosine helps to reduce the activity of neurons. This in turn helps to reduce the pain levels being experienced.
How Does The Keto Diet Help To Reduce Pain Caused By Inflammation?
When you follow the keto diet the body goes into a state called ketosis. During ketosis the body switches from burning sugar (carbohydrates) as fuel to using fat. One of the ketone bodies are created during this process is beta-hydroxybutyrate. Research has shown that beta-hydroxybutyrate can block an immune system receptor that is linked to inflammation called the NLRP3 inflammasome.
The NLRP3 inflammasome is part of our bodies immune defenses. It reacts to threats in the body such as infections, toxins or damage that is occurring in the body such as if there is too much glucose. When the immune system encounters these things it launches the bodies defenses through the NLRP3 inflammasome. The NLRP3 inflammasome then releases substances that leads to an inflammatory response. This quick defense system helps us to survive. But, it can constantly be activated when you have frequent high blood sugar levels.
The NLRP3 inflammasome also appears to be involved in the body’s pathways for pain. The ketone body, beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), has been shown to strongly inhibit the NLRP3 infammasome pathway in rat studies. By following a ketogenic diet you don’t have high glucose levels in the blood, which then doesn’t trigger the immune system response and it even inhibits this response which then affects pain levels.
Foods That Cause Inflammation:
There are some foods that can contribute to inflammation and you should avoid them if you are having issues with chronic pain. These foods include:
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Foods that contain high amounts of sugars such as sugary drinks, candy and ice cream
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Processed snack foods such as crackers, cookies and chips
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Refined carbohydrates
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Too many carbohydrates in general
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Excessive amounts of alcohol
Following a keto diet not only produces ketones that help to reduce the amount of inflammation in the body but it also helps to decrease damage from free radicals, increases adenosine to help fight inflammation as well as act as a pain reliever and it contributes to decreased pain perception.
If you are suffering from chronic pain then the keto diet may have more benefits for you than simply just losing weight.
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