Everything you consume has an effect on your body and health. Although some might try to convince you otherwise, your food choices has a major influence on how you feel on a daily basis.
Joint pain on the other hand, refers to inflammation, discomfort and soreness in any of the joints in your body. It is a very common problem and this kind of pain can be chronic or acute and may be mild or severe, making it impossible to use your joint.
Gout and arthritis are the two main causes of joint pain. It can also result from broken or dislocated bones, muscle strains, bursitis, leukemia, fibromyalgia and lupus.
But whatever the cause, joint pain can be managed with exercise, medication or alternative medicines. Diet also plays a key role in managing joint pain.
5 Foods You Should Avoid That Could Be Making Your Joints Hurt
1. Conventional Dairy Products
If you have a mild sensitivity or allergy to dairy products, your body will create histamine whenever you ate them.
Histamine is a chemical that occurs naturally in your body as a protection against infection. Histamine creates an inflammation in your body, which is necessary for helping with infection. But when you continue to consume foods that cause this allergic reaction, you can end up with an overabundance of inflammation in your joints, thus leading to joint pain.
Research has also linked the protein in dairy to being a main dietary culprit, when it comes to arthritic inflammation. Even if you do not have a milk allergy, the protein in milk or even skim milk, could be causing your joint pain.
2. Corn, Cottonseed Oils, Safflower, Sunflower, and Soybean
Omega-3 and omega-6 fats are essential fatty acids and this means your body cannot make them on its own. You must get these nutrients from your diet.
For good health, a balance of these two fatty acids is needed. The problem is, the standard American diet is full of omega-6 fats, but less so in omega-3’s.
Omega-6 fatty acids causes inflammation, while omega-3’s act as anti-inflammatory. This is why you need the two of these together to maintain good health. Nutritional experts consider this imbalance to be the root cause of many different disease, including joint pain.
3. Sugary Soda
Sugar consumption can trigger the release of inflammatory messengers known as cytokines, according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. When researchers studied data from two large studies spanning about 30 years, they have found a link between arthritis risk and soda consumption. Women who drank at least one soda or more daily had a 63% greater risk of arthritis than those who did not drink it at all.
4. Salt and Preservatives
Salt in moderation is not a problem and is important to your health. But too much salt consumption is a problem and has been associated to inflammation in the airways and joints.
If your body is faced with excess sodium, your kidneys cannot eliminate it fast enough and a lot of sodium can accumulate in your blood stream. This leads to higher blood pressure, higher blood volume and an increase of inflammation, due to the excess pressure on your joints.
5. Tomatoes
Tomatoes are typically thought to be anti-inflammatory, but those who suffer from gout have thought that this red fruit actually triggers joint pain. New research proves them right.
Researchers studied 2,051 people who have gout, 20% of whom reported tomatoes as a trigger. Data were analyzed from 12,720 people who did not have gout and found that eating tomatoes increased the levels of uric acid found in their blood. High uric acid is the major cause of gout.
Related Articles:
1. 7 Joint Pain Triggers That Can Make Rheumatoid Arthritis Worse
2. 5 Exercises You Should Try to Prevent Knee Pain As You Age
3. Ways to Strengthen Joints Naturally