These steps reversed coronary artery blockages in 82 percent of Ornish's research subjects

I raise it here simply to illustrate a critical point: the old idea that chronic pain is a one-way street is undergoing a dramatic change, and the key comes from understanding how nutrients can help the body's natural restorative processes. We will take a detailed look at this work in progress in this part. Most people with back pain, however, do not realize what is going on in their lumbar arteries, nor do they know how foods and lifestyle changes might be able to affect them. Imagine what that could mean to the millions of people suffering with chronic back pain, and the millions more for whom it is just around the corner. The next questionone that researchers are just beginning to tackle-is, will it work in the back, too? Sugar may affect pain, at least in certain circumstances. While there are also benefits to be gained from certain supplements, particularly natural anti-inflammatory plant oils, identifying your own sensitivities is an enormously important first step. The same benefit has been seen for migraines.

By avoiding specific foods, many patients improved dramatically: pain diminished or went away, and joint stiffness was no longer the routine morning misery. Often the culprits were as seemingly innocent as a glass of milk, a tomato, wheat bread, or eggs. In the Lancet of October 12, 1991, arthritis researchers announced the results of a carefully controlled study that tested how avoiding certain foods could reduce inflammation. In headaches, joint pains, and digestive pains, for example, the key is not so much in adding new foods as in finding out which foods have caused your pain and avoiding them, while building your meals from foods that virtually never cause symptoms for anyone. Choose pain-safe foods. I will spell them out briefly here and, in the chapters that follow, will show you how to apply them. Vitamin B6 can even increase your pain resistance, to name just a few; Whether we are talking about back pain, migraines, cancer pain, or anything else, there are three basic principles to using foods to fight pain. Cranberry juice can fight the pain of bladder infections.

Natural plant oils can reduce arthritis pain. Ginger and the herb feverfew can prevent migraines, and coffee sometimes cures them. Research studies have revealed special effects of certain foods and nutrients, as we will see in detail in the chapters that follow; Rice or peppermint oil, for example, can soothe your digestive tract. It also works in the arteries to the legs. Dr. Dean Ornish, a young Harvard-trained physician, now on the faculty of the University of California at San Francisco, proved beyond any reasonable doubt that if we change our diets enough, and avoid smoking, excessive stress, and sedentary habits, the arteries start to clean themselves out. By the mid-1990s, we already knew that artery blockages could be reversed, at least in other parts of the body.