Alleviating Pain with Fats and Oils

ALLEVIATING PAIN WITH FATS & OILS

by David M. Marquis, DC, DACBN

No, I'm not talking about lathering your body up in the latest colorful pain relieving "Super Gel". I'm referring to getting at the actual source of inflammation. Taking proactive steps to look at what you are doing that ultimately causes an increased production of inflammatory chemicals in your body.

Everyday I am more and more amazed at the tools we have all around us available for proactively treating our aches and pains and we continue to overlook them for more reasons than I care to deal with.

A basic understanding that everyone should have is that the type of food they eat on a daily basis has a direct and profound impact on every ache and pain they feel. In some cases pain can be related to an undetected food allergy which is easily identified with simple blood testing. Today however I am writing more particularly about the fat that we ingest or often it's the fat we avoid ingesting that causes inflammation.

Our body uses the fat we eat to make every cell in our body. In addition it uses fat to create hormones and eicosanoids, the compounds by which our cells communicate. Imagine building a wall out of blocks and as you are working you run out of block and go back to the store to pick some more up. The original block you purchased is out of stock but they have some that looks nearly identical only it is rated at less than 1&Mac218;2 the strength rating of the original block. Wanting to finish the wall yesterday you go ahead with the poor quality block because it looks virtually the same and is less expensive. A few days later a storm comes and dumps on your wall and after a day of rain you notice that the wall is cracking and splitting through the lessor quality block and eventually the wall collapses around them.

This scenario resembles what happens to our cells (the block wall) when we eat margarine or anything with hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated, or trans-fats in them (read your food labels). These fats fit into our cells very well. However they are essentially non-functional and create communication trouble and metabolism problems for every cell that houses them. In addition the type of cellular communicators (eicosanoids) that are produced from these damaged fats are very inflammatory and make us more likely to feel pain from regular daily activities. Add a stressful life on to this situation and you are then pouring gas on a fire. As our insulin and cortisol levels increase from poor diet (eating refined sugars and carbohydrates) and daily stress our body produces more and more inflammatory products and we manifest this situation as disease. This situation is played out in virtually every disease state from arthritis, ADHD, heart disease and stroke to PMS and excema.

To begin to counter this situation the first step is quite simple. First eliminate all of the fake fats such as those noted above and replace them with a daily supply of Flax, Borage, Primrose, Salmon, or Cod-liver oil. Make sure the oils are extremely fresh and pharmaceutical grade and never cook with them. For cooking stick with butter or olive oil and for deep heat use palm oil (not palm kernel) these are stable with heating and should not breakdown into damaged fats in any substantial quantity.

Using GLA (Gamma Linoleic acid) from Borage oil can make a profound difference in the day to day pain experienced by arthritis sufferers. Using DHA (Docosahexanoic Acid) from cod-liver oil or the EPA (Eicosapentanoic Acid) from flax oil makes a huge difference in the lives of kids battling with ADHD.

It's time to stop fighting our bodies and get to the source. So many people take supplements which is great but they don't realize that essential fats and oils are the basic building blocks our body uses to build every cell that makes us. By avoiding fats or constantly eating damaged or poor quality fats we are perpetuating the cycle of chronic inflammation and disease.

Best of Health,
Dr. David M. Marquis