Product Description

Did you know that ginger can prevent migraines and that coffee sometimes cures them? Did you know that rice can calm your digestion, that sugar can make you more sensitive to pain, that evening primrose can ease the symptoms of arthritis?
        
Drawing on new and little-known research from prestigious medical centers around the world, Neal Barnard, M.D., author of Eat Right, Live Longer and Food for Life, shows readers how they can soothe everyday ailments and cure chronic pain by using common foods, traditional supplements, and herbs.
        
Dr. Barnard reveals which foods regularly contribute to pain and how to avoid them. He guides the reader to specific pain-safe foods that are high in nutrition but don't upset the body's natural balance, as well as foods that actively soothe pain by improving blood circulation, relieving inflammation, and balancing hormones. Complete with delicious recipes, Foods That Fight Pain is a revolutionary approach to healing that will transform your life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36984 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-27
• Released on: 1999-04-27
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 9.19" h x .93" w x 6.08" l, 1.01 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Amazon.com
Foods have special effects on pain, and research studies substantiate this, says Neal Barnard, M.D., in Foods That Fight Pain, a book endorsed by fellow doctors Dean Ornish and Andrew Weil. You can use foods to fight pain in these ways:

1. Choose pain-safe foods. Reduce inflammation by avoiding foods that may be causing or aggravating your pain.

2. Add soothing foods that ease pain. Different foods may improve blood flow, relieve inflammation, or balance hormones.

3. Use supplements if needed. Herbs, extracts, and vitamins can relieve pain.

Barnard explores a variety of medical conditions, such as migraines, arthritis, digestive problems, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome, diabetes, herpes, sickle-cell anemia, kidney stones, urinary infections, and back, chest, breast, menstrual, and cancer pain. For each, Barnard explains the causes of the pain and what dietary changes are likely to alleviate it, with exercise and lifestyle recommendations. Barnard backs up his points with 30 pages of research citations.

Most of the recipes are quick to prepare, and include an elimination diet to avoid trigger foods. A nutritional breakdown (calories, fat, protein, carbohydrate, and sodium) accompanies each recipe. Following the advice in this book will not only relieve your pain, but increase your overall health. Highly recommended. --Joan Price

From Publishers Weekly
Although the strategies laid out by Barnard have, despite the subtitle's claim, been presented in other health books, they've seldom been explained this succinctly. According to Barnard (Food for Life), certain foods and nutritional supplements can alleviate pain as well as or better than prescription drugs. From backaches to bowel problems, cancer to canker sores, Barnard offers clear explanations of the physical processes involved as well as practical dietary and nutritional advice. No matter what the problem, for starters he recommends a low-fat, high-fiber, strictly vegetarian diet, the same as the one prescribed for heart patients by Dr. Dean Ornish, whom he quotes extensively. Citing scientific studies as well as anecdotal evidence, Barnard tells how powdered ginger, for example, can prevent motion sickness, alleviate migraines and the pain and swelling caused by osteoarthritis. Vitamin B6 can be used to treat carpal tunnel syndrome as well as menstrual pain. Lists of "trigger" foods to avoid for various health conditions are valuable, if sometimes daunting: for example, the trigger foods for arthritis include all dairy products, all meat (including fish), wheat, citrus fruit, potatoes, tomatoes, nuts and coffee. A hefty section of menus and recipes by Jennifer Raymond makes it easier to practice what Barnard preachesAa technical sermon whose main message is: eat your veggies. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A physician and author of several diet and health books (e.g., Eat Right, Live Longer, LJ 4/15/95), Barnard has written an extensive consumer book on diet therapy for pain. Each chapter discusses a different type of pain, complete with scientific evidence and explanations of the origins of the pain, foods that trigger it, and foods that reduce it. The last chapter offers pain-control recipes contributed by Jennifer Raymond, the author of numerous health-related recipe books (e.g., Fat Free & Easy, Heart & Soul, 1997). Already familiar with cholesterol-lowering recipes, Raymond has incorporated Barnard's pain-control foods into her easy recipes and even tried them on family and friends. Compared with other books on diet therapy, which focus mainly on arthritis pains, this book has a wider coverage, touching on issues such as poor circulation, food sensitivities and inflammatory pain, hormone-related pain, and metabolic and immune problems. A highly informative book for consumers seeking alternative therapy for chronic pains.
-?Lily Liu, Arkansas Children's Hosp. Lib., Little Rock
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.