The Western diet is associated with many ills, and now chronic pain may be added to the list.
Fats provide important health benefits, but they can be too much of a good thing. Most people eat too many omega-6 fats and not enough omega-3. A new study looks at the potential for omega-6 fats’ influence on neuropathic pain in people with diabetes and other conditions.
Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio studied the effects of omega-6 fatty acids themselves by measuring the role of these dietary lipids in pain conditions and found that the substances themselves seem to cause pain and inflammation.
The abundance of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats prominent in the typical Western diet “served as a significant risk factor for both inflammatory and neuropathic pain,” UT said in a statement.
