Hidden in Plain Sight: Nightshades Cause Joint Pain & Insomnia

Is relief worth giving up potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, paprika, ashwagandha, & gogi berries?

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I’ve pulled Dr. Garrett Smith’s key points from his life-changing article in Wise Traditions, March 2010. You can read the entire thing here:

https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/food-features/nightshades/

Dr. Smith says that, depending on your inheritance, you may be very sensitive to food plants in the enormous nightshade family (Solanaceae):
• Tomatoes
• Potatoes (not sweet potatoes or yams)
• Eggplant
• Peppers – chili peppers, habenero, cayenne pepper, paprika
• Goji berries
• Ashwagandha
• Huckleberries (not blueberries)

Dr. Smith, a naturopathic physician, is himself very sensitive to these foods:

“In my medical practice, I treat pain often. In my opinion, pain management – that is, long-term painkillers, without a goal of true pain relief – is for suckers. For me and many of my patients, nightshade avoidance is the answer to long-term relief from pain.”

Most of us love these foods!
We can’t imagine that they are bad for us. But in an argument between Pain and Taste Buds, guess who will eventually prevail!

Common symptoms of nightshade sensitivity:
• Inflammation, joint pain and cracking
• Sensitivity to weather changes
• Muscle pain and tightness, morning stiffness
• Poor healing
• Arthritis
• Insomnia
• Heart burn or GERD

Learn from Dr. Smith’s experience:

“For those of you who think you have tried “everything” for your arthritis pain, but haven’t tried avoiding nightshades— in my opinion, it’s something you do need to try. I can tell you as a naturopathic doctor that I have tried many different remedies for my middle back pain. Nightshade avoidance got rid of 90% of it. If you’re one of those people whose pain treatments (be it chiropractic, acupuncture, laser, energy medicine, whatever!) provides only a day or two of relief, you’re quite possibly nightshade sensitive.

“A physical therapist once told me that if a patient isn’t responding to treatment, one of the first things to consider is nightshade sensitivity— there is simply nothing else that anyone can do to help somebody in pain when nightshade sensitivity is the cause—because once they eat some nightshades again, their pain will return as it was before.

Where should calcium go— into bones and teeth, or in soft tissue?

“Overconsumption over nightshade foods causes high levels of calcitriol. [To be specific, between April and October, when the UVB rays of sunlight reach our bare skin (that’s when sunlight has the shortest path to Earth), the result is cholecalciferol (vitamin D3), which the body can store. When needed, the liver converts D3 into the active hormonal form – calcitriol – which causes the body to absorb a lot of calcium.]

“Calcitriol circumvents the kidney’s control and, over time, causes calcium deposits in the soft tissues such as the tendons, ligaments, cartilage, cardiovascular tissues, kidneys and skin. Osteoarthritis is basically calcium deposits in the soft tissues of joints. Chronic hypercalcemia can lead to generalized vascular (blood vessel) calcification, which is coronary artery disease. Nephrocalcinosis is calcification of the kidneys.

“The conventional view is that arthritis is the result of the joint ‘wearing out.’ If this were the case, then arthritis would always be accompanied by inflammation…. However, osteoarthritis typically has no inflammation, so it really should be called osteoarthrosis….

What really causes joint pain?

“Many people are told that they have “no cartilage left” in their joints, but what if the truth was that the cartilage had slowly calcified? It would be nearly impossible to tell the difference between the two situations unless one knew exactly what to look for.

“All nightshades contain nicotine, which is why they can be addictive.… A large body of research shows that nicotine consumption inhibits proper healing. In one study, nicotine delayed tendon-to-bone healing in a rat shoulder—the equivalent of our rotator cuff.¹² ….

Dr. Smith takes issue with the idea that capsaicin can help reduce pain.

“For example, there is an over-the-counter cream containing capsaicin that is promoted to help deplete substance P from local nerve endings and relieve pain.

“However, inducing massive releases of substance P on a regular basis is like taking speed until your adrenals run out of adrenaline; it leads to a chronic local or systemic depletion of substance P. Substance P is necessary for proper healing. The brain gets a signal from substance P telling it that something is hurt and needs to be fixed. So when you have diabetics using capsaicin cream for their neuropathy, they feel better—the pain signal is gone—but they are inhibiting the healing process.

“Capsaicin receptors have been found in arthritic joints. When they inject capsaicin into mouse knee joints, it reduces blood flow.¹⁵ That’s a bad thing. Blood is what heals us. When neonatal rats were given capsaicin, their immune markers were depressed for 90 days.”

Regarding treatment, Dr. Smith cautions:

“For many, no relief comes until the diet is totally clear of all these nightshades for at least 6 weeks….

“But the real question is, why are some people more sensitive than others? Nutrient deficiencies certainly come into play. For example, if you don’t have enough magnesium, you will be more prone to calcinosis. [Illogically,] deficiency in vitamin D may exacerbate the problem. The speed at which one’s liver and kidneys detoxify these compounds plays a huge role, and this is dependent both on genetics and nutrition.

Dr. Smith recommends vitamin K2:

“A key nutrient is vitamin K₂—Dr. Price’s famous Activator X. I love this study on vitamin K₂: The Effect of Vitamin K₂ on Experimental Calcinosis.¹⁸ They gave rats calcinosis by giving them way too much vitamin D₂. [This is the type of vitamin D made by plants, and also what’s usually put into vitamin pills, not the D₃ we get from seafood, bacon fat, and sunlight]. A high dose of vitamin K₂ suppressed experimental calcification of soft tissues induced by vitamin D₂. So if you want to avoid problems with nightshades, be sure to eat goose liver, cheese, fatty grass-fed meats and pasture-fed butter.”

[Further clarification: just as there are 2 types of vitamin D, there are 2 types of vitamin K₂. The best kind of K₂ is MK-4, which is found in pastured milk, butter, eggs, and (especially!) in goose fat and emu fat. One way of knowing it’s better for us is that MK-4 crosses the placental barrier while MK-7, which comes from fermentation, cannot.]

Sigh – we will miss our nightshade foods! (Why? Because they contain addictive nicotine.) Here are some substitute foods that may ease our way:

“Sweet potatoes, yams and parsnips are good substitutes for potatoes. You can steam cauliflower and mash it with butter and cream. As a substitute for chili pepper, use wasabi, horseradish, mustard powder, ginger, or freshly ground peppercorns. There’s no good substitute for tomatoes, so learn to use them sparingly.”

Maybe there’s solace in peppercorns:

“Peppercorns are not the same as peppers; they are not members of the nightshade family. Peppercorns do not contain poisonous alkaloids. Fresh ground pepper is the best; pre-ground pepper is not good for you. It doesn’t taste very good and you’ll notice you have to use a lot more of it. Once the peppercorns are cracked open, the protective and flavorful essential oils begin to evaporate. This allows a type of aspergillus mold to grow, which then produces aflatoxin.”

Garrett L. Smith NMD, CSCS, CBP, BS, is a native and near-lifetime resident of Tucson, Arizona. An alumnus of the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, he currently operates a general naturopathic medical practice (Naturopathic Medicine of Southern Arizona) and a Low Intensity Laser Therapy practice (Laser Therapeutics). An ardent believer in First Do No Harm, the three major areas Dr. Smith focuses on are nutrition, exercise and energic medicine modalities, including Low Intensity Laser Therapy (LILT) and BodyTalk. Dr. Smith is a strong believer in looking to traditional cultures, evolutionary biology, and the “Blue Zones” to guide his approaches to nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle. In his spare time, Dr. Smith enjoys strength training, reading, cooking, road cycling, and spending time with family and friends. He can be contacted at adminNMSA@gmail.com.