Say Goodbye to Chronic Pain: The Answer
Could be Glutamate
Angie Radek
What do McDonalds, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and every
other restaurant have in common? Glutamate. Glutamate is a very popular salt
and chemical used in foods all around the world. Western countries, like the
U.S, are best known for processed food that contain glutamate. But, other parts
of the world struggle with inexpensive food that contains glutamate due to economic
reasons. Because of this processed food and struggle with diet, the world suffers
with nutrition, obesity, and most importantly, pain control particularly in
chronic pain. Dr. Gebhart focuses on visceral pain, chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain, and the symptoms
associated with this type of pain. But, can the pain and symptoms be minimized
or eliminated if we just promoted a healthy diet and eliminated glutamate, instead
of jumping to pain killers and difficult surgeries?
Dr. Gebhart argues that chronic prostatitis and chronic
pelvic has symptoms such as the pain, burning, or the need to frequently urinate
because it is visceral. This is important because Dr. Gebhart stresses that visceral,
or the internal nervous system, is unique because it is an intrinsic system. Additionally,
Dr. Gebhart focuses on this system because the pain is usually an inflammation,
not felt at the source but somewhere else, has poor localization, and has hypersensitivity.
This visceral pain is unique because it is extremely difficult to control, difficult
to target the source of the pain, and which neurons are involved. Thus, a
poorly understood system.
But, one of the most
unique characteristic of the visceral pain system that Dr. Gebhart emphasizes on
is that the organs obtain innervation from two nerves. This is key to
understanding any internal pain because one can have hypersensitive organs. This
is reflected by a leftward shift in the stimulus response function. This is
important because sensitization is a property of nociceptors, which is our pain
nerve endings. Dr. Gebhart proposes an example that because of this, in
irritable bowel syndrome, low volume urine will cause an uncomfortable feeling
when normally it would not. This system is key in understanding the chronic
pain felt in diseases such as chronic prostatitis and chronic pelvic pain.
Additionally, Dr. Gebhart
goes in great detail about the processes that chronic pain takes place. For example,
in bladder, it goes from the bladder, to the PG, to the PN, and finally to the
sacral/parts of the brain. Also, it is emphasized that the vagus nerve cell
body in the nodose ganglion transmit the pain to the NTS and into the
brainstem. Recent research has focused its attention into studying the specific
nerve associated with chronic pain. For example, in a study by Miller and
Fraser the researchers studied the importance of pelvic never fibers in
endometriosis, another disease in women that can cause chronic pain (Miller et.
al, 2015). This research is a great contribution and outlines the importance of
the anatomy of the pain but is not a solution to chronic pain itself.
Chronic pain is one of
the most troublesome health problems due to its complexity, treatment methods,
and pain control. But what if something as simple as eliminating or lessening
glutamate consumption can eliminate chronic pain?
Newer research suggests
that glutamate consumption can impact the amount of chronic pain an individual
has. A study performed in Kenya with the help of doctors from University of
Michigan suggested that cutting “monosodium glutamate from[subject’s] diets,
symptoms improved” (American University, 2018). Also, this study concluded that
symptoms like chronic fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, headaches, migraines, and
sleep issues are reduced when glutamate consumption is cut.
Since chronic diseases
and the visceral pain system is poorly understood, newer research suggest that
chronic pain and its symptoms could be eliminated if individuals made diet modifications
and attempted to reduce one chemical: glutamate. Instead of attempting to
understand the exact neurons, pain fibers, and other association with pains,
research should gear towards fully understanding how glutamate levels is
affecting the body, brain, and visceral pain system because it is reducing symptoms
of chronic diseases.
Although it is difficult to control one chemical,
many individuals, the government, schools, doctors, etc. should take nutrition
and diet modification seriously because it is affecting the U.S and other parts
of the world in a negative way. Diet should be part of an individual’s prescription
and not just prescription drugs or typical treatments. Sometimes, the simplest
change can make the largest difference.
Sources
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