How Nutrition Can Affect Your Feet? Here’s What To Know  

Nutrition is one of those things that can be difficult to get right, yet it can have wide ranging impacts on your body. Some of which you don’t even realize, and one such area is our feet. Our feet are often easy to forget about when we are trying to look after ourselves, we often pass over them in favor of other areas, but foot health is paramount to overall health! Read on to find out why it’s important, and how nutrition can adversely impact your feet.

Why Is Foot Health Important?

It is easy to think of our feet as just the items that carry us around, but our feet have nervous system links with our spines and other important areas of our bodies. If you want a good insight into your overall health, your feet can show you this! Many common aliments can be seen in your feet before anywhere else, and these same ailments can be solved as they are often nutrient and mineral deficiencies.

Inflammation and Swelling

One of the most common foot complaints that Dr’s and medical staff here is that their patient’s feet are suffering from inflammation and swelling, whilst it can be unsightly, it can also be incredibly painful. Both conditions can be caused by a variety of medical problems and aliments, but research conducted in 2015 suggests that one way of managing the inflammation and swelling is by reducing foods that spike your blood sugar. These foods include foods that are high in sugar, over consumption of white flour and items such as pasta. You don’t need to cut all of these from your diet, but if you have a balanced diet, the spikes will be decreased, therefore so will the swelling.

Cold Feet

Some people may find that their feet became inexplicably cold and they haven’t warmed up since. If you are one of these people, you may find that it is down to poor circulation. There are many causes for this, and maintaining healthy feet during the winter can be particularly difficult. Eat foods such as dark chocolate, cayenne pepper and nuts to help increase circulation. Regular exercise and nutrient rich food can work wonders for your feet.

Numbness

If you are suffering from diabetes or have been given advice that you are at risk of diabetes, then bettering your nutrient intake can help you. Your feet are what bare your weight, and with poor nutrition in extreme cases it can result in nerve damage. Nerve damage in your feet is particularly dangerous because it can be difficult to spot adhesions or issues that can become infected, which can become a serious issue. Good nutrition can help you limit the effect of type-2 diabetes on your feet if you have been diagnosed, and if you haven’t been diagnosed, it can help preventing you from getting to that point.

Cramping

Good nutrition is all about striking a balance, you don’t want to eliminate anything completely from your diet as each food group, mineral, and vitamin plays a roll. If you have eliminated salt from your diet or exercise frequently in warmer climates, you may find that your feet are cramping more readily. This comes down to a mineral deficiency, particularly salt and magnesium. So start looking at foods where you can increase these minerals and intake more water!

Impact of Poor Nutrition on Your Feet

Poor nutrition can be one of the biggest issues for our feet. They are literally the mechanism that take us everywhere we need to go, and if we are overeating poor foods, chances are we are putting on weight. Excessive weight gain can lead to a whole host of problems for our feet, such as nerve damage which, in extreme cases can lead to limb amputation if you have un-healing wounds. Gout is also caused through poor nutrition; however gout is inflammation of the joint caused by crystallization. Gout can be minimized by staying away from very rich foods such as lamb, red wine, and port.

Final Considerations

Our feet are often the last things we think about when we think of self-care. Most of us would rather have a back massage than our feet worked on, but what most of us don’t know is that our feet are indicative of our overall health. Manage your food intake better to encompass all food groups, and consume everything in moderation. This will decrease the risk of diabetes, gout, swelling, cramping, and increase and promote good circulation, blood flow, and healing. We are even giving you permission to eat chocolate! Dark chocolate can help promote circulation which can help even the coldest of feet health during the winter months. It is always worth looking after our feet as they are solely responsible for getting us from place to place.