Orem Chiropractor Discusses Nutritional Approach To Inflammation & Pain Relief

Today I’m going to discuss the article “Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) as an anti-inflammatory: an alternative to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for discogenic [neck and back] pain.” Surg Neurol. 2006 Apr;65(4):326-31, Maroon JC, Bost, JWSurg Neurol. 2006 Apr;65(4):326-31, Maroon JC, Bost, JW

This research was done at the Uniersity of Pittsburgh Medical Center, in Pittsburgh, PA.

As your Orem Chiropractor I want to make the world a better place and the way that I can do that is by making your life better.

In this article you’ll find some information that will make your life better by reducing back pain, neck pain and headaches without the use of drugs or surgery.

NSAID or Non Sterodial Anti Inflammatory Drugs are a commonly used drug for neck pain & back pain. In most cases people are able to use these medications without incident. Unfortuantley, for some complications like gastric ulcers, bleeding, myocardial infarction, and even death occurs.

The authors report that “An alternative treatment with fewer side effects that also reduces the inflammatory response and thereby reduces pain is believed to be omega-3 EFAs found in fish oil.”

The researchers took 250 people who had been seen by a neurosurgeon and were found to have nonsurgical neck or back pain. These people were then asked to take 1200 mg per day of omega-3 EFAs (eicosapentaenoic acid and decosahexaenoic acid) found in fish oil supplements.

After 75 days on the fish oil 78% were taking 1200mg and 22% had increased their fish oil to 2400mg.

Now, here’s the cool stuff. 59% stopped taking their prescription NSAID’s for pain. 60% stated that their overall pain was improved and that their joint pain had improved. Eighty percent stated they were satisfied with their improvement, and 88% stated they would continue to take the fish oil.

There were no significant side effects reported.

To conclude researchers stated that “Our results mirror other controlled studies that compared ibuprofen and omega-3 EFAs demonstrating equivalent effect in reducing arthritic pain. omega-3 EFA fish oil supplements appear to be a safer alternative to NSAIDs for treatment of nonsurgical neck or back pain in this selective group.”