11 Ways Your Diet Can Relieve Pain

What you eat can help ease chronic pain. These diet tips can lower inflammation and support long-term healing

Sanjay Gupta, M.D.,

AARP

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Published August 27, 2025

Kyle Ellingson

Our food choices don’t just boil down to pounds gained or lost on a scale. They affect every aspect of our health, including our resistance or resilience to pain. Here are some simple rules to keep in mind.

1. Pay attention to proteins

If you get most of your proteins from plants such as beans, whole grains and nuts, your levels of chronic inflammation — the kind that can trigger chronic pain and damage your body on an array of levels—will be lower.

2. Eat more fiber

A form of carbohydrate, fiber may lower chronic inflammation. Try for the following:

Women over 50: 21 grams daily
Men over 50: 30 grams daily

Good sources of fiber include whole grains, oatmeal, nuts, berries, beans, vegetables, brown rice and popcorn.

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In It Doesn’t Have to Hurt: Your Smart Guide to a Pain-Free Life, Sanjay Gupta, M.D., shares effective options for relief that you can start practicing today to greatly reduce your chances of suffering pain tomorrow.

3. Eat your vegetables and fruits

In addition to their many other benefits, vegetables and fruits reduce inflammation. Berries and cherries are especially good options. Fruit juice is usually not, because it is high in sugars and low in fiber. Strive for a minimum of five cups of vegetables and fruits per day. And if you have diabetes or prediabetes, emphasize nonstarchy vegetables over fruits.

4. Use more anti-inflammatory herbs and spices.

A 2012 study found that the best anti-inflammatory herbs and spices to eat are paprika, rosemary, ginger, turmeric, sage and cumin. An earlier study found that cloves, ground Jamaican allspice, cinnamon, sage, marjoram and tarragon are also great choices.

5. Avoid trans fats

Trans fats, which are added to foods to increase their shelf life, can add to the body’s inflammation. Avoid foods whose labels say they have “partially hydrogenated” oils. Foods that often have trans fats include baked goods (cakes, pie crusts, frozen pizza) and fried foods (doughnuts, fries).

6. Limit saturated fats

Most (not all) saturated fats also promote inflammation. These fats mostly come from animal sources such as meats and dairy products like milk, cheese, cream and butter. If you eat meat, a good general rule is to try to eat white meats, fish and other seafood.

7. Balance omega-6s and omega-3s

You need both for your body to work properly, but eating high amounts of omega-6s compared to omega-3s can increase inflammation. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what most Americans do. Our ancestors ate perhaps twice as much omega-6 fat as omega-3. But now, most Americans eat 14 to 25 times as much omega-6. Omega-6s come from plant oils like corn oil, soybean oil and sunflower oil, as well as some nuts and seeds, including almonds, walnuts, sunflowers and pumpkin seeds. Omega-3s are found in fatty fish like salmon, tuna and mackerel. Try to eat at least two servings of fish (3 to 4 ounces each) weekly. Omega-3s are also found in walnuts, ground flaxseed, chia and hemp seeds and green, leafy vegetables.

8. Eat monounsaturated fats

One of the monounsaturated fats, olive oil, is known to reduce inflammation, blood pressure, bad cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Other sources of this type of fat are canola, peanut, safflower and sesame oils. Avocados are another good source.

9. Enjoy some dark chocolate

Most people like this suggestion! To help with inflammation, dark chocolate should be at least 70 percent cocoa—check the label for the percentage. One and a half ounces daily decreases inflammation and also lowers blood pressure.

10. Close the kitchen at night

Not only what but when you eat can matter. Intermittent fasting involves alternating periods of eating with periods of fasting (not eating), and it may have a promising role in chronic pain treatment, specifically around inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, report the authors of a 2022 study in the journal Nutrients. The fasting need not be for an extreme period of time; a common intermittent fasting schedule takes place in a 24-hour day, with an eight-to-12-hour span for eating, and the remaining hours, including sleep time, abstaining from food. Fasting is not for everyone; those concerned about frailty should be cautious about possible effects.

11. Stay away from ultra-processed foods

As a Harvard Health article explains, “a report published in December 2019 in Nature Medicine notes that sugars, [refined] grains and extra salt in ultra-processed foods can change the bacteria in your gut, damage the gut’s lining and switch on inflammatory genes.”

Source: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Whole Health Library. Used with permission.

Adapted from It Doesn’t Have to Hurt: Your Smart Guide to a Pain-Free Life by Sanjay Gupta, M.D. Copyright © 2025 by Sanjay Gupta, M.D. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Sanjay Gupta, M.D., is an associate professor of neurosurgery at Emory University Hospital and associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. He is chief medical correspondent for CNN.