Eating for Injury – Tip 3

Follow our food quicktips each month to help eat your way to less pain and better performance!

Tip 3

Cut out/ limit sugar-loaded processed foods and drinks such as fizzy drinks, cakes, cookies, and doughnuts.

The Why

All refined carbs, like cakes, cookies and fizzy drinks, lead to a sharp upward spike in your blood sugar level after being eaten [1]. This increase in blood sugar leads to a rapid uptake of sugar by the cells of the body which in turn causes an immediate inflammatory response. This response is proportional to the blood sugar elevation i.e. the more sugar you eat, the more your blood sugars spike and the greater the inflammatory response.

Therefore, regularly consumed these sugary foods result in increased levels of inflammation and can exacerbate pains like arthritis and nerve pain [2].

​According to the American Heart Association, the maximum amount of added sugars you should eat in a day are.

• ​Men: 150 calories per day (37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons).
• Women: 100 calories per day (25 grams or 6 teaspoons).

For a little perspective, a single 330ml can of coke has 35 grams of sugar! ​That’s almost the entire daily male allowance and well over the daily the allowance for women!

References

1. Atkinson FS, Foster-Powell K & Brand-Miller JC (2008) International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2008. Diabetes Care. 31, 2281-2283
2. Seaman, D. R., & Palombo, A. D. (2014). An overview of the identification and management of the metabolic syndrome in chiropractic practice. Journal of chiropractic medicine, 13(3), 210-219.

Related Articles

• Supplements for Sciatica
• Statins and muscle pain
• Curcumin for Arthritis and Tendonitis

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This post was written by Steffen Toates. Steffen is a chiropractor at Dynamic Health Chiropractic in Jersey CI. For more information about Steffen click here.

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