Nutritional Therapy
Numerous research studies have confirmed that diet and nutrition play a significant and important role in the management of illness and pain. Success relies on a multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach, incorporating lifestyle and dietary changes to achieve optimum health and well-being.
What is Nutritional Therapy?
A Healthy Diet
A healthy diet is one in which the food you eat contains all the nutrients needed by the body for it to grow, heal, and to function on a day-to-day basis. Diets that are low in fat and cholesterol, and high in wholegrains, dietary fibre, fruits and vegetables, are healthier and provide more energy.
Taking Supplements
As a general rule, supplements should be taken regularly over a period of months. Vitamins B3 and B6 and magnesium deficiencies are well recognised in fibromyalgia sufferers and therefore taking a good quality multivitamin and multi-mineral supplement is the best way of ensuring you get a balance of nutrients.
Recommended Foods and Supplements
Eating the right kind of food can go a long way in helping your body’s own healing forces. You need sulphur-containing foods to repair and maintain bone, cartilage and connective tissue. Foods high in sulphur include asparagus, eggs, garlic, and onions.
Eat less saturated fat and more alkaline-forming foods like millet, organic fruits and vegetables.
Other good foods are green leafy vegetables, fresh vegetables, non-acidic fresh fruit (avoid oranges, plums, and rhubarb), whole grains, oatmeal, and brown rice.
Certain foods may aggravate various musculoskeletal conditions and therefore should be avoided. They are dairy products, gluten (as found in wheat, oats, barley, and rye), corn, sugar, and members of the nightshade family such as potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and tobacco.
Reduce your intake of acid-forming foods such as tea, coffee, alcohol, red meat, biscuits and cakes.
You may want to check for other food allergies as well, especially if you have fibromyalgia and / or myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME / CFS). (See our article Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS))
Examples of conditions resulting from sub-clinical deficiencies include fatigue, lethargy, and susceptibility to colds and viruses.
The Western Diet
Westerners tend to be overfed but undernourished. The foods we eat are far less nutritious than they appear thanks to intensive farming methods, pesticides, additives, and preservatives.
We now know that food intolerances and allergies significantly contribute to various conditions such as asthma, eczema, and rheumatoid arthritis.
But on a more positive note, we also know that certain types of food can actually support and stimulate the body’s intrinsic ability to heal itself.