How Pop Culture Created A Fibromyalgia Epidemic.

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In my opinion, the field of nutrition is one of the most confusing areas of science that exists. You can go to Google and type "is X good or bad?" and get multiple articles on both sides of the issue. For every one person says something is good, two people claim it to be bad. There seems to be two views of nutrition. The first is what I call "real nutrition"...for obvious reasons, and the second is what I call "pop culture nutrition" and it is created by commercials and uneducated spokesmen spreading what is usually incorrect information. One of the worst claims of pop culture nutrition, if not THE worst, is the lie about fat being bad, and sadly, it has been the mainstream belief for about the last 30 years or so. 

Now, what does this have to do with Fibromyalgia? Well, think about this -- fat is vitally important for your body to function and for you to be healthy. You have over 100 TRILLION cells in your body; and do you know what the outside of each cell is made of? Fat! Do you know what is one of the major building blocks of many of your hormones? Fat! Guess what substance coats your nerves. Fat! And if I were to ask you what makes up about 60% of your brain? I really hope, at this point, you would guess fat. You see, in order for you to live, your body absolutely, 100% needs fat. And remember, this is definitely not an exhaustive list, but rather the tip of the iceberg of why your body needs fat. (And yes, there are many different forms of fat and there are good fats and bad fats, but I am not going there right now.) So in hopes to bring this full circle, what substance have people been going out of their way to avoid over the past 30 years? You got it...Fat! 

When you read about what causes Fibromyalgia, it 

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always seems to come back to dysfunction with the nerves/brain, hormone imbalances, and/or genetics. Think about what we just went over, if you spent the last 20 years depriving your brain, nerves, and hormones of the fat that they need to be healthy, do you think there will be problems? Absolutely. Well, what about the genetic links? There is an awesome field of study called "epigenetics" that shows that the environment that a person's genes are in plays a huge role in how they are expressed. So basically, if you have major deficiencies and toxicities in your body, your genes are going to cause your body to express dysfunction, not health. Thus, eating low fat can cause your genes to express dysfunction and problems that show up in the body as Fibromyalgia. 

So what evidence is there that eating a diet low in fat causes Fibromyalgia? How about the research. There are many research articles that show demyelination of nerves (when nerves loose their fatting coating) and hormone imbalances in Fibromyalgia patients, and some possible genetic factors. Secondly, I would say look at the timing. The Fibromyalgia epidemic is relatively recent, and it seems to coincide with the popularity of low fat diets. Could it just be coincidence? Maybe, but I highly doubt it. A third reason is the fact that Fibromyalgia affects women to men at a  9:1 ratio. Why is that? I believe it is because women are much more likely to eat low fat because they believe the lies that it will help them to be skinny and healthy. The last reason is simply clinical experience. The people that I have known who've made the greatest gains in overcoming their fibromyalgia are people who've changed their lifestyle and started to eat large amounts of good fats.

The fact of the matter is, there is no fibromyalgia germ. The symptoms of Fibromyalgia are simply the body expressing an underlying dysfunction. And for the record, I do not believe that low fat diets are the only and sole cause of Fibromyalgia, but rather a MAJOR factor of it. To be healthy, a person must detect the cause of a problem and provide a means of correction. It makes no sense to me for someone with Fibromyalgia to load up on different drugs that simply suppress the body into not expressing symptoms... symptoms that are there in the first place to let you know there is a problem!

If you liked this article and/or know someone with Fibromyalgia please share it with them. If you have any questions feel free to email me. 

Dr. Matt