Abstract
Food consumption has significant positive effects on an individual’s health status, including the reduction of symptoms associated with musculoskeletal pain. However, specific food groups indicated for the treatment of pain are not yet determined. Hence, this review aimed to analyze the effects of nutritional interventions with specific diets, oils and/or fatty acids, and foodstuffs in natura in the reduction of musculoskeletal pain. An integrative review was conducted in the following databases: Embase, PubMed, LILACS, and Google Scholar. Clinical trials written in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and published between 2000 and March 2020 were included in this review. Seventeen studies were included. Among these, a reduction of musculoskeletal pain with different types of nutritional interventions, such as vegan and Mediterranean diets and the consumption of blueberry, strawberry, passion fruit peel extract, argan oil, fish oil (omega-3), olive oil, and undenatured type II collagen and vitamin D gel capsules, was observed in 14 studies. Eight studies evaluated the profiles of several inflammatory markers, and of these, decreased interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1β, and tumor necrosis factor-α levels were observed in two studies. This review suggests that different nutritional interventions with specific diets, oils and/or fatty acids, and foodstuffs in natura reduce musculoskeletal pain, specifically in adults with osteoarthritis. Besides pain improvement, nutritional interventions, including the consumption of strawberry and vitamin D gel capsules, decrease the levels of several inflammatory markers.
Highlights
Musculoskeletal pain is a complex health problem that causes discomfort, results in poor quality of life, and affects millions of people worldwide [1,2,3]
More recently, several noninvasive and non-pharmacological interventions used to reduce musculoskeletal pain have been investigated [3] such as nutritional interventions with specific diets or with the consumption of specific foods [8,9,10,11]
To guide the search for scientific publications of intervention studies, the problem was formulated based on the PICO strategy [41], where P stands for people with musculoskeletal pain; I for nutritional interventions with specific diets, oils and/or fatty acids, and foodstuffs and other food supplements in natura in the treatment of pain; C for the control group with normal diet or the placebo group or other interventions for pain; and O for the expected outcome, which was the reduction of musculoskeletal pain
Summary
Musculoskeletal pain is a complex health problem that causes discomfort, results in poor quality of life, and affects millions of people worldwide [1,2,3]. This pain can arise in different musculoskeletal structures (e.g., muscles, bones, joints, ligaments and tendons, and periarticular tissues) [3,4,5]. More recently, several noninvasive and non-pharmacological interventions used to reduce musculoskeletal pain have been investigated [3] such as nutritional interventions with specific diets or with the consumption of specific foods [8,9,10,11]. Several foods or substances with functional properties have been studied for their anti-inflammatory effects and/or their possible treatment of pain, such as omega-3 present in fish oil [13,14,15,16], olive oil [17,18], turmeric [19], and green tea [20]; resveratrol in Nutrients 2020, 12, 3075; doi:10.3390/nu12103075 www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients
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