What You Eat Is Your Foundation: Nutrition Tips for Aging Patients
If you've been coming to our chiropractic office for back pain or neck pain care, you already know that chiropractic care is about more than just your spine — it's about your whole body working well together. One piece of the puzzle that often gets missed, especially as we get older, is nutrition. What you eat has a profound effect on how your spine, muscles, bones, joints, and nerves function every single day and help you get around Murfreesboro.
AGING AND NUTRITION
With each passing decade, our bodies quietly shift in ways that make good nutrition both harder to achieve and more critical to our overall health. Research published highlights that older adults face distinctive physiological challenges when it comes to micronutrient absorption and utilization. Reduced stomach acid production, changes in gut motility, and reduced kidney function can all worsen how efficiently the body processes vitamins and minerals — even when dietary intake seems adequate. (1)
NUTRITION AND BACK PAIN
For anyone dealing with back pain, these nutritional gaps can make a significant and often underestimated difference. Vitamin D and calcium are critical for bone density, and deficiencies are directly associated with increased fracture risk and osteoporosis-related spinal compression. Magnesium plays a key role in muscle relaxation and nerve transmission, and low levels can contribute to muscle cramps and tension that worsen back pain. B vitamins support nerve health, and antioxidants like vitamins C and E help reduce the chronic inflammation that drives many musculoskeletal conditions.
Importantly, the midlife years are the ideal time to take action — not after symptoms worsen. A study by Yu and colleagues (2) found that educational interventions aimed at midlife women significantly improved both knowledge and self-efficacy around healthy ageing, including the safe-guarding of what researchers call "intrinsic capacity" — the physical and mental reserves that keep us functional and independent as we age. Nutrition is a basis of that capacity.
The encouraging part is that none of this is fixed — simple, consistent shifts in what you eat, like adding more leafy greens, fatty fish, nuts, seeds, and colorful vegetables, can directly strengthen the progress we make together in the treatment room. We at Most Chiropractic Clinic encourage every patient to think of nutrition as an extension of their chiropractic care. Your spine is only as strong as the body supporting it.
CONTACT Most Chiropractic Clinic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. James Cox on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he talks about a common spinal condition, disc degeneration, that accompanies aging and how The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management helps.
