Hidden Link Between Artificial Sweeteners and Chronic Pain
If you're living with chronic back or neck pain, you've probably experimented with everything—stretches, heating pads, over-the-counter medications. But have you considered what's in your diet drinks and "sugar-free" snacks? Emerging research intimates that artificial sweeteners might be harming your pain relief efforts through an unexpected pathway: your gut. Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc is here to explore any possible avenues to help you get your pain under control!
THE GUT-PAIN CONNECTION
Your gut isn't just in charge of digestion—it's home to trillions of microorganisms that impact inflammation throughout your entire body, including your spine and neck. Recent groundbreaking research has described a direct link between artificial sweeteners, gut health, and chronic pain sensitivity.
A 2025 Mendelian randomization study by Zhao and colleagues demonstrated that artificially sweetened foods can actually cause chronic pain by disrupting the gut microbiota. (1) This isn't just correlation—the research shows a causal relationship between using these sweeteners and elevated pain levels.
HOW SWEETNERS TRIGGER PAIN
Artificial sweeteners can change the balance of beneficial bacteria living in your digestive system. These disrupted microbes trigger inflammatory responses that go throughout your body. As documented in a comprehensive 2019 review by Guo and colleagues in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, the gut microbiota directly controls pain through multiple molecular mechanisms, including immune system activation and nerve sensitivity. (2)
For back and neck pain sufferers seeking help at Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc, this inflammation can raise pain sensitivity in already vulnerable areas. Your spinal nerves become more reactive, making an already uncomfortable situation worse and potentially slowing your recovery.
TAKING ACTION
Before you see us again, consider removing artificial sweeteners from your diet. This would entail checking labels on diet sodas, protein bars, yogurts, and sugar-free desserts for ingredients like aspartame, sucralose, and saccharin
Chiropractic physicians understand that pain management demands a whole-body approach. While spinal adjustments address mechanical dysfunction, decreasing inflammation through dietary modifications can significantly raise treatment outcomes. By supporting your gut health, you're establishing an internal environment more beneficial to healing and less responsive to pain signals. Small dietary changes might be a great addition to your pain relief strategy with Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc.
Your way to back pain relief and/or neck pain relief may begin with what you remove from your grocery cart.
CONTACT Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. James Cox, on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes the impact inflammation has on the immune system and the benefit of chiropractic care like The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management that Fort Wayne chiropractic patients may experience.
