Do You Have Joint Pain? Check the Gut
Have you ever woken up feeling like your knees are going to shatter, your low back is screaming at you, and your neck is as stiff as a board? The first thing you might do is head to goggle, type in “back pain” and become bombarded with everything from WebMD, stem cell injections, ads for local pain clinics, and maybe even a chiropractor (likely your best choice of them all). That’s not to say that the previously mentioned options aren’t viable, heck, I’m in Chiropractic School right now. I just think, and have seen, many incidents where one’s joint pain was brought on by poor dietary choices and health destructive lifestyle habits.
How could that be? How could the food we eat cause my back pain to flare up? Cause my knee to start bothering me again? Bring about this new onset of shoulder pain that I’ve never had before? It’s our old friend, The Gut.
From Outside to Inside
What most of us think of as ‘The Gut,’ is just the area around our stomach, when in fact, the Gastrointestinal (GI) Tract runs all the way from our mouth, to our anus (sorry to be the bearer of bad news). One unique feature of the GI tract is that it’s always in contact with the outside world. It serves to protect the inside of our body from potentially harmful things we may encounter on the outside. Think about it, when you eat food, your mouth is the first part of the body to come in contact with it. Then down the esophagus (long tube from the mouth to the stomach), then to the stomach where it’s broken down more, into the small and large intestine where food is absorbed and fiber is left to be fed upon by gut bugs (if you’re interested in knowing more about these gut bugs, check out my article on ‘The Garden Within’), then finally out your anus and hopefully into a toilet near you.
That entire time, our GI tract was attempting to keep harmful things (such as bacteria and viruses) from entering our body and only letting in good things (vitamins and minerals from food) into our bodies. The problem arises when the gut becomes overwhelmed with too much harmful stuff, and ultimately some harmful things can make their way into the body (ever hear of, ‘leaky gut’). These ‘harmful’ things (molecules from pathogenic bacteria) make their way into the bloodstream, and for whatever reason, they decide to hang out in the joints of your low back.
It’s All about the Inflammation
Inflammation seems to be the buzzword of the health/wellness sphere; all you have to do is say “This tactic reduces inflammation!”, and the person sounds like a genius. Little do they know, many times, inflammation is A GOOD THING. Guess what happens after you exercise? Guess what needs to happen to help fight off infection? Inflammation happens! This is necessary inflammation to help your body heal and recover. However, what I’m referring to, is chronic, low-level, systemic inflammation.
Remember me mentioning molecules from bacteria making their way into the low back, this isn’t an infection by the traditional ‘cold, flu-like stuff,’ but rather more low-level inflammation. Whilst in the low back, these molecules become recognized by our immune system. Subsequently, our immune system starts to mount a response (INFLAMMATION), and sends soldiers to the low back to fight off the pathogen. Oftentimes, symptoms such as pain happen because these immune soldiers are battling harmful molecules from bacteria. The low back being the battleground. All is good and well if the immune system is able to fend it off, but what if the reason this happened was because of food you were eating? Foods you eat everyday. Sometimes multiple times a day! Insert the vicious cycle of chronic, low-level, systemic inflammation.
What We Know
Many research studies use mice (poor things), and many of them use Germ-Free (GF) Mice, meaning these mice have no bacteria in them at all. They then implant bacteria from other mice (maybe one with Diabetes or Rheumatoid Arthritis, via stool transplant) into the GF mice. Researchers do this in order to understand the role bacteria can play in disease regulation. In some instances, these GF mice see an increase in pain when injected with stool from normal mice (1). You may be asking yourself, “Self, how can that be?” The bacteria from the conventional mice may include some harmful bacteria, and once these bacteria are in an environment they’ve never been before, they can cause quite a fuss for the previously GF mice’s immune system (aka Inflammation). This inflammatory response leads to greater ‘battles’ taking place, and thus greater pain sensitivity.
Diet (and antibiotics) are the quickest way to change the gut environment. Even as little as one meal can set you up to improve, or worsen, the inflammatory status of your gut. Think of it like, every time we eat is like every time the subway train stops, with lots of different people getting on and off of the subway. When we eat, some bacteria die off (leave), while others are left to grow (get on). That’s amazing isn’t it!? In as little as one meal, you can change your environment to help reduce inflammation, and thus improve your joint pains!
What Should I Eat?
The key to remember with diets is whatever diet is good for someone else, may not, and likely will not, be the best diet for you. Most people who decide to make dietary changes to support their joint pains will do some sort of elimination diet. This diet seeks to eliminate the foods that are causing their inflammation to flare up the most. I think the Paleo diet is a great place to start with an elimination diet. The Paleo diet is the diet that our ancestors would have eaten, rich in fruits, vegetables, tubers, nuts, seeds, and most importantly well-raised animal products. The foods that are eliminated include dairy, gluten, legumes, and grains. Eliminate these foods for anywhere from 21–30 days, then slowly reintroduce one at a time, and write down if you have any joint pain flare ups.
These foods can be pretty problematic for some people, but unfortunately some can also have reactions to nuts, seeds, and even vegetables! The key is like I mentioned previously, whatever diet is good for someone else, may not, and likely will not, be the best diet for you. Some may have reactions to gluten but not dairy, and some may have reactions to nuts but not gluten. Who doesn’t love self-experimentation!? If you’ve done elimination diets before or are feeling lost on where and how to start, I suggest seeking out a Functional Medicine Practitioner in your area.
Can Probiotics Help with my Joint Pain?
This is a question I get quite often, and unfortunately I don’t think we can give an absolute yes or no answer. Data from patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (an autoimmune disease that attacks someone’s joints) shows they can reduce inflammatory markers and improve symptoms in some patients, while some see no improvement in either (typically the case for most supplement studies) (2; 3).
However, data do show that healthy individuals can reduce inflammatory markers using probiotics (4). If you think about what we talked about earlier, this makes sense. More inflammation in the gut means more systemic inflammation, aka greater potential for joint pain. When you reduce inflammation in the gut, via the assistance of probiotics, you reduce the potential for your joints to also become inflamed and painful.
I personally like probiotics from Apex Energetics and Functional Medicine Formulations (Dr. Michael Ruscio).
Over the past decade much has been discovered about the far reaching impacts of the gut. Gut-Brain, Gut-Skin, and for our purposes, the Gut-Joint connection can be huge avenues to help support your health. There’s good reason #Guthealth has become so trendy, hopefully you get a chance to ride the wave.
As always, trust in Your Gut.
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are for educational purposes only, and are not intended to diagnose or treat any condition. Do not apply any of the information in this article without first speaking with your doctor.
References
- Guo, R., Chen, L., Xing, C. et Liu, T. Pain regulation by gut microbiota: molecular mechanisms and therapeutic potential. Brt Jour Anath, 2019, 123 (5): 637–654.
- Mohammed, A., Khattab, M., Ahmed, A., Turk, T., Sakr, N…et Huy, N. Clin Rheumatol, 2017, 36(12): 2697–2707.
- Rudbane, S., Rahmdel, S., Abdollahzadeh, S., Zare, M., Bazrafshan, A. et Mazloomi, M. The efficacy of probiotic supplementation in rheumatoid arthritis: a meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials. Inflammopharmacology, 2018, 26(1): 67–76.
- Milajerdi, A., Mousavi, S., Sadeghi, A., Salari-Moghaddam, A., Parohan, M… et Esmailzadeh, A. The effect of probiotics on inflammatory biomarkers: a meta-analysis or randomized clinical trials. Eur J Nutr, 2020, 59(2): 633–649.
