907 - Nutrition Intake Pattern Association with Pain Severity among Patients with Low Back and Multisite Pain: Implications for Physiatrists

Objectives: To characterize nutritional patterns among patients with chronic LBP or Multisite Pain, and determine the contribution of food intake patterns on LBP and bodily pain after adjustment for social health determinants.

Design: Cross-sectional survey

Results: Average meals/per day were 1.8±0.8. Meals were skipped on average 4.0±2.4 days/week. Mean daily fresh fruit-vegetable and whole grain servings were 2.8±1.1 and 2.3±2.6. Correlations were significant between overall body NRS_pain and daily fresh vegetable servings, weekly servings of whole grains, olive oil and nuts/seeds (r range -.129 to -.158; p< .05). Weekly skipped meals and servings of canned vegetables were related to overall body pain (r range = .182-.205; p< .05). Regressions showed that daily vegetable servings contributed to LBP and overall body pain scores (both p< .001) after controlling for covariates. For each weekly serving of fresh vegetables, NRS_pain scores were reduced by 0.5 and 0.4 points in patients with LBP and Multisite Pain.

Conclusions: Intake of fresh produce and whole foods is not ideal in these patients. Physiatrists can encourage whole food and vegetable consumption during clinic visits to help improve pain outcomes.