ABSTRACT
Patients frequently complain of chronic pain, which was affected by some foods. Previous investigations showed beneficial effect of some kind of fruits and seeds on pain. The aim of present study is to determine believes of the patients with chronic pain that whether food affects their pain. This cross-sectional analysis performed on 445 patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain in Yazd rhomathology clinic/Iran. Patient's points of view were assessed in terms of 97 variants of eating materials. The data were analyzed using statistical software SPSS-13. Of 455 patients enrolled at the study, more than 50% believed that food affects some how on pain perception. The age of patients ranged 18-81 years old [mean: 44.95, SD:14.67]. Of them, 77.1% were female and 22.9% male, which 57.8% of studied people complained of mechanical pain, 36% of inflammatory type, and 6.2% of other types of pains including non-specific ones. In meat groups, beef and sausage increased pain in majority of them [beef: 32.9% increase the pain and 1.3% decrease it], dairy products in most of the patients decreased pain [milk: 31.1% decrease the pain and 10.5% increase it], but grains, cereals and rice increased the pain [rice: 26.3% increase the pain and 2.6% decrease it] but bread decreased the pain [10.1% decrease the pain and 1.8% increase it. Cucumber [31.6% increase the pain and 4.4% decrease it, water melon [30.3% increase the pain and 6.6% decrease it] and some of the sour fruits increased usually their pain. Lettuce [21.9% increase the pain and 11% decrease it, potato, tomato, beans and aubergine increased their pain severely, but okra [11.8% decrease the pain and 2.2% increase it], carrot, onion, garlic and celery decreased the pain. All nuts like almond, walnut, hazelnut and pistachio diminished the pain, which walnut was the most effective one [37.7% decrease the pain and 0.4% increase it]. On the other hand, nuts especially walnut are believed to be pain-relieving. In conclusion food may have some impact on musculoskeletal pain as mentioned by our patients. It seems that abstinence of some drinks and foods can be helpful in better control of chronic pain in selected patients, that are named as cold [Sard] food in our traditional culture. More multi-population studies are suggested for more precise and comprehensive results