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Nutrition’s Role in Chiropractic Care

Nutrition goes hand in hand with chiropractic care. Why? Well, chiropractic care treats the whole body, taking a holistic approach to wellness. If your food choices are unhealthy, it reduces the benefits of chiropractic care. In fact, your dietary choices might even harm the important chiropractic work being done. What you feed your body has the potential to fuel and recharge your muscular, skeletal, spinal and nervous systems. What you feed your body also has the potential to harm body systems. These systems deal directly with chiropractic care areas such as inflammation, muscle building and bone weakness. Nutrition plays a vital role in chiropractic care.

Nutrition’s Role in Chiropractic Care

Nutrition’s Role in Treating Inflammation

A common reason to check in with a chiropractor is because of inflammation in muscles around the spine. This inflammation could be caused by injuries or health concerns like heart disease or diabetes. To start naturally treating this inflammation at home, add these anti-inflammatory food options into your diet:

• Tomatoes
• Berries
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Green vegetables
• Nuts
• Fish (specifically salmon, herring and mackerel)
• Turmeric
• Green tea
• Fruits

Adding these foods into your meals will support the chiropractic care you’re receiving for spinal inflammation.

Nutrition’s Role in Muscle Building

Muscle injuries commonly bring people to a chiropractic office. To supplement the chiropractic care being done, focus on a diet that helps build muscle strength around these injury areas. Adding protein-rich foods increases muscle building and repair.

In addition, as you are healing from a spinal injury, your lifestyle may become less active. To help combat this, stay away from calorie-heavy foods. Calorie-heavy foods can lead to increased weight. Increased weight puts extra stress on the spine as it is healing, making the healing process last longer and be less effective.

Nutrition’s Role in Combating Bone Weakness

Misalignment can be caused in part by weakness in various bones. Calcium is integral in improving bone strength. Eating foods that have a high calcium content can really help with chiropractic adjustments by strengthening your skeletal system. Focus on adding calcium into your diet, but also don’t forget about magnesium. With a high intake of calcium and magnesium, the chance for osteoporosis goes significantly down. Calcium really helps build bone strength—but only if the correct amount of magnesium is present in the body as well. You can find magnesium in almonds, spinach, avocado, cashews and bananas.

Nutrition’s Role in Overall Health

The above food suggestions are directly related to chiropractic care. In addition to those tips, there are more factors involved in a healthy nutritional plan. To begin forming a nutritional plan, start by cutting out certain food groups. Cut out these food groups for 30 days and see how your body reacts. Doing so essentially pushes the “reset” button on your metabolism, inflammation and overall health. For these 30 days, cut out alcohol, added sugar, grains, legumes, dairy, carrageenan, MSG and sulfites. (Refer to this article on our website for descriptions of where each of these foods are found.) Instead of those foods, eat fresh food like meat, seafood, eggs, veggies, fruit, oils, nuts and seeds.

Nutrition plays a vital role in chiropractic care. In fact, your dietary choices can reverse the work you’re doing with a chiropractor, so it’s vital to create a personalized nutrition plan. For more information about how to form a complete nutritional plan, contact Van Ness Chiropractic and ask about our dietary coaching and toxin detox programs. Drs. Drs. Van Ness, Parkin and Sabri offer services that benefit your body and your life. Call 847-842-8070, email info@vannesschiro.com or click here to get started.