by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS
Note: In this blog series on optimizing tissue healing, we will be looking at food, nutrients and supplements. We will be discussing products from our partner, Titan Nutrition. The owners at Titan are longtime friends and they make superior products at a great price (message me for a friends and family discount). You can explore their products or use another brand. It is completely up to you.
We often look at the world of physical rehabilitation and think about clinicians healing their patients. We like to think that we, as caretakers, are responsible for healing their injury or ailment. But the reality is that WE DON’T HEAL ANYONE FROM ANYTHING!! Our job to is set up the environment to allow for healing to take place. That’s all that our fancy tools and modalities are designed to do.
Unfortunately, one thing we often forget about in this conversation are the foods that we consume. They play an important role in tissue healing and they should be part of our regular conversation with our patients. I’m not over here pretending to be a registered dietitian or anything like that, but I do think that if we can take a few minutes to have a quick conversation with our patients about what they are consuming, it will make a difference in our patient outcomes.
Setting Up the Ideal Environment
The lens we need to look through for this conversation is the idea that we are trying to do everything that we can to make the ideal environment to promote tissue healing. This means that our patients need to get enough quality sleep, reduce their stress, and make good overall healthy choices. When the environment is right, the body is able to dedicate every ounce of energy and resources to the task at hand…healing. If the system is fighting fatigue, a poor immune system and so on, it has to split its resources, compromising tissue healing.
The goal of this blog series is to provide some ideas and insights that can be used as part of our conversations with our patients to help them heal quickly.
Caloric Expenditure
One area that should be looked at with injured patients is their caloric needs. This can be a bit confusing and challenging to figure out for a lot of people. Here’s what we know:
- Healing from an injury requires more energy than normal in the form of calories consumed (some research suggests an increase of 15-50% is needed to heal from an injury).
- While injured, most people decrease their overall physical activities, reducing some of their caloric needs
- A primary goal of acute injury therapy is to prevent muscle atrophy. One way to help prevent muscle atrophy is by increasing protein intake. This will also improve tissue healing because proteins are the building blocks of our tissues.
Should our patient increase or decrease their caloric intake?
This is a pretty individualized question because there are a ton of variables to consider, such as their age, pre-injury activity levels, body composition, goals, etc. But, it is pretty safe to say that if your patient is considering significantly cutting their caloric intake so they don’t gain weight, it very well may impact their tissue healing.
I recommend to my patients that at least during the initial acute phase of healing that they keep their caloric intake pretty consistent with their pre-injury levels, even with their decrease in activity. This will allow their body to dedicate the excess calories that they aren’t burning from their sport or normal activities to healing their body. Then, we can always re-assess their body composition, progress and goals after the acute phase is complete.
Protein Needs
Because protein plays such an important role in preventing atrophy and healing from injuries, it is important that we increase protein intake for most people. If they are already consuming a high level of protein prior to their injury, you may not need to change anything, but the majority of our patients aren’t doing this prior to their injury.
An easy number to start with is 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. This can vary quite a bit (meet with a registered dietitian if you want to get exact), but the math is easy and it is a great goal to strive for. The biggest take home for most people is that their percentage of total calories that come from proteins should go up after an injury, not down. So, if at patient is typically consuming 20% of their calories from proteins prior to an injury, that number needs to go to more like 30-40% of their total calories even if their total caloric intake stays consistent.
Of course proteins can and should come from foods as much as possible, but with most of our busy lifestyles, finding consistent, high quality forms of proteins is tough. That’s where I recommend that my patients consider a protein supplement, at least in the short term to maximize their healing process.
There are tons of proteins on the market at different price points. There isn’t a ton of rocket science behind protein supplements, but do keep in mind that there isn’t a lot of oversight with supplement companies either, so buyer beware. Usually the cheapest products and the things you can buy at your local discount mart have a lot of sugars or fillers in them. On the other end, really expensive protein supplements aren’t usually that much better than their close competitors.
Do some research and find a good supplier that has clean products without a bunch of stuff mixed in that you don’t want. Look for a good protein at a good price that tastes great. As I said previously, I love Titan’s proteins and I consume them daily and give them to my kids. That’s how much I trust them. But this isn’t an advertising for them. It’s a conversation about protein.
Conclusion
My take home message for this post is that our goal should be to optimize tissue healing with a near perfect environment. A large part of creating this environment is through optimal protein intake and consuming enough calories. Attempt to get your protein through food, but when you can’t get there, supplement your needs with a high quality protein supplement.
Next up:
Optimizing tissue healing with micronutrients.
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