About 2 out of 3 people in chronic pain regularly turn to chocolate, ice cream, salty snacks or other comfort foods to cope, a new study says.
This raises their odds of gaining weight, which in turn can worsen pain and increase risk of future health problems, researchers said.
"People who live with pain every day need to find ways of coping," said senior researcher Toby Newton-John, head of the Graduate School of Health at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia.
"We think about medication, physiotherapy or heat packs as pain management strategies, but we don't usually think about food in the same way."
Newton-John added in a news release that two-thirds of the study's sample "said they turned to food at least once [every two weeks] when pain flared."
About 1 in 5 people around the world live with chronic pain — pain that lasts three months or more, researchers said in background notes.
For the new study, researchers surveyed 141 adults with chronic pain about their diets and food choices.
Results showed that fewer than 1 in 5 patients (18%) never turn to comfort eating to deal with their chronic pain.
More than 70% reported using food as a way of coping with pain at least once a month, and 64% at least once every two weeks.
The main reasons for turning to comfort eating included:
"That was the somewhat unexpected finding," researcher Amy Burton, a lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Technology Sydney's Graduate School of Health, said in a news release.
"Comfort eating wasn't just for the purpose of distraction or numbing negative feelings, although those were important too," Burton said. "For many, eating comfort foods provided a nice experience in their day and something to look forward to."
"If you're living with pain all the time, that moment of pleasure becomes a pretty powerful motivator."
There also might be a biological explanation for comfort eating, although the study wasn't designed to look into that, Burton said.
"Research shows high-calorie foods can have a mild pain-relieving effect," she said. "Even in animal studies, rats in pain will seek out sugar."
"It seems it's not just psychological. It's possible that there is a real analgesic property to these foods as well."
However, this relief comes at a cost. Nearly 40% of study participants met the criteria for obesity.
Worse, food-driven relief can become part of a vicious cycle in which it worsens chronic pain, Newton-John warned.
"In the short term, high-calorie food makes people feel better. It reduces pain symptoms and enhances pain tolerance," he said.
"Long term, it can fuel weight gain and inflammation, which increases pressure on joints and makes pain worse; and that can trap people in a spiral that's very hard to break," Newton-John added.
These results indicate that dietary advice should be woven into pain management programs to help people avoid using comfort eating as a means of dealing with pain, researchers said.
"We usually teach skills like relaxation, stretching exercises or how to pace activities, but we rarely talk about food in this context," Newton-John said.
"This work shows we need to help people recognize if they're using food as a pain-management tool and give them alternatives."
At the same time, people living with chronic pain don't deserve to be food-shamed, he said.
"Managing daily pain is incredibly tough, and medication often only goes so far. It's understandable that people reach for something that feels good," Newton-John said.
"But awareness is key, both for clinicians and for patients, to escape this cycle."