Relationship Between Diet and Relative Risk of Pain in a Cross-Sectional Analysis of the REGARDS Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Aim: Determine if dietary patterns affect risk of pain. Methods: Data from 16,061 participants (55.4% females, 32.3% Black, age 65 ± 9 years) in the REGARDS study were categorized based on the adherence to previous dietary patterns reflecting the prevalent foods within each (convenience, alcohol/salads, plant-based, sweets/fats and ‘Southern’). A modified Poisson regression model was used to determine whether dietary patterns were associated with relative risk (RR) of pain. Results: High adherence to ‘Southern’ dietary pattern was associated with a 41% (95% CI: 23, 61%) increase in RR of pain. High adherence to a plant-based dietary pattern showed a 22% (95% CI: 11, 31%) decrease in the RR of pain. Conclusion: Poor quality dietary patterns increase the RR of pain, while plant-based patterns lowered the RR. Diet patterns should be incorporated into medical history.

Lay abstract

Chronic pain is a concern for many people and diet may influence the development and maintenance of pain. It is possible that the types of foods that people consume changes their likelihood of having pain. We know that diet interventions can reduce chronic pain, but it is not known how diet patterns are related to the risk of reporting pain. Here, we examined data from over 16,000 people and looked to see whether the types of foods that they ate was related to the likelihood of reporting pain in the last 4 weeks. People who ate more processed meats, sweetened beverages and fried foods (the ‘Southern’ diet pattern) were more likely to report pain than those that ate less of these items. However, people whose diet had more plant-based foods (vegetables, fruit, beans) had a decreased risk of reporting pain. Generally, those people who had a higher quality diet were less likely to report pain in the last 4 weeks. Not only can diets be used as a treatment for pain, but eating healthier foods may be protective of developing pain and reduce the likelihood of pain.

Keywords::

• dietary pattern
• nutrition
• pain
• racial differences

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at: www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.2217/pmt-2021-0048

Financial & competing interests disclosure

U01 NS041588 co-funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Service. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.

Data sharing statement

The authors state that the data described in the manuscript, code book and analytic code will be made available upon request pending application and approval by authors and oversight committee.

Additional information

Funding

U01 NS041588 co-funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Service. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.