Nutrition for Neuropathy

Neuropathy affects more than 20 million Americans, or one in 15 people in the United States.¹ Although it can occur at any age, it is more common in older adults, especially in individuals who have diabetes or who are undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.

Conventional medical doctors cannot do much to treat this condition, but you have the knowledge and skills to really make a difference in these patients' lives. Beyond the therapy you provide in your clinic, the No. 1 thing that will make a difference for your patients is nutrition. Every neuropathy patient who walks through your doors can benefit from a diet designed to reduce inflammation and facilitate the body's natural healing process.

Anti-Inflammatory Foods: Key to Managing Neuropathy

When the body isn't getting the nutrition it needs, it performs triage on the organs and operations of the body, making decisions about what is or isn't essential. Often, the body decides blood flow to the feet is the least important for survival and makes reductions accordingly.

If you want to get blood flowing all the way to the extremities, you'll need to intervene and provide 100 percent nutrition on a daily basis. To do this, you will need to correct the underlying dysbiosis in the bacteria and yeast that reside in the digestive tract.

Fiber: Ninety-nine percent of the time, inflammation begins in the gut. Increasing your patients' intake of fiber is the key in this reversing this process. To increase your patients' intake of fiber, you can recommend a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables. These will not only provide the nutrients your patient needs to improve their health, but also will provide the fiber the gut needs to heal.

Increased fiber intake is associated with microbial diversity, which has in turn been linked with a number of markers of good health.⁵ Fiber also supports the bacteria that form a protective mucus layer between the contents of the gut and the intestinal wall, which prevents harmful substances from damaging these delicate tissues.⁶ This helps to reduce intestinal permeability ("leaky gut") and give the body a chance to heal.

On top of all this, fiber helps to keep food moving through the digestive system at the right pace, which keeps food from fermenting for too long and feeding harmful bacteria. If you can correct the underlying problem in the gut, you can often correct the entire problem.

Omega-3: I recommend my patients consume plenty of omega-3 fatty acids, both from whole-food sources and high-quality supplements. Consumption of omega-3 fatty acids has been associated with improved outcomes for a number of different chronic conditions ranging from Alzheimer's to rheumatoid arthritis.²

For neuropathy, omega-3 helps to reduce pain and inflammation while also boosting circulation, and this makes an enormous difference! Omega-3 supports the entire cardiovascular system and encourages healthy blood flow to areas that may have been neglected.³ Recommend that patients consume the foods highest in omega-3 fatty acids – including hemp seed, flaxseed, and chia seed – and supplement with a high-quality salmon oil or flaxseed oil.

B and D Vitamins: Patients with neuropathy also need plenty of vitamin B and vitamin D. Vitamin B deficiencies are sometimes the cause of neuropathy, so it is especially important to make sure your patients are consuming enough of this essential group of nutrients.⁴ Fortunately, mushrooms are extraordinarily high in both vitamin B and D! You can recommend that your patient consume a variety of mushrooms on a daily basis. If your patient eats meat, you can also recommend wild-caught salmon as another excellent source of both. At the end of the day, you will also want to prescribe a high-quality supplement for both essential nutrients.

Pro-Inflammatory Foods Your Patients Should Avoid

When you teach your patients what to eat, you'll also need to teach them what to avoid. To beat the inflammation associated with neuropathy, your patients will need to steer clear of processed oils, flours and sugars. Refined oils are a problem because they're high in inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids.⁷ This category includes obvious problem foods like canola oil and soybean oil, but also includes less-obvious shelf staples such as sunflower oil and peanut oil.

These oils are regularly added to a variety of processed foods, so the best thing you can do is recommend that your patients steer clear of foods found in a box, bag or can. If you can get your patients to spend their time shopping in the produce section, you'll have won half the battle.

Processed sugars and flours are inflammatory because they have a high glycemic index. Foods like white bread, pastries, bagels and candy bars are all high in simple carbohydrates that increase blood glucose, which in turn increases the body's production of insulin. This process increases inflammation, which makes neuropathy symptoms worse. If your patients continue eating these foods, you will find that the problem becomes very difficult to treat.

Nutrition for Neuropathy: Good for Your Patients, Your Practice and You

If you approach neuropathy from a nutritional perspective, you will absolutely change your patients' lives for the better. Because this approach really works, your patients will be thrilled with the care they receive in your office, and you'll become the go-to doctor for neuropathy in your area.

If you aren't already treating patients with neuropathy, adding this new modality can help you to build a steady stream of recurring income that you can use to offer higher quality care to more members of your community. You'll be able to help more patients, increase your income and achieve the goals you set for yourself when you became a chiropractor.

References

1. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Peripheral Neuropathy Fact Sheet. National Institutes of Health, 2019.
2. Office of Dietary Supplements. Omega-3 Fatty Acids. National Institutes of Health, 2019.
3. Schacky C, Harris WS. Cardiovascular benefits of omega-3 fatty acids. Cardiovasc Res, 2007;73(2):310-315.
4. Staff NP, Windebank AJ. Peripheral neuropathy due to vitamin deficiency, toxins, and medications. Continuum, 2014;20(5):1293-1306.
5. Han M, Wang C, Liu P, et al. Dietary fiber gap and host gut microbiota. Protein & Peptide Letters, 2017;24(5):388-396.
6. Mackie A, Rigby N, Harvey P, Bajka B. Increasing dietary oat fibre decreases the permeability of intestinal mucus. J Functional Foods, 2016;26:418-427.
7. Simopoulos AP. The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids. Biomed & Pharmacother, 2002;56(8):365-79.