Are there any dietary taboos for fractures?

In fact, there are not so many mysterious absolute taboos that everyone spreads. Many widely circulated taboo requirements have no scientific basis and may also slow down the speed of recovery.

Last month, I met a young man in the outpatient clinic who had just undergone surgery for an ankle fracture. When he came for a follow-up examination, his face was thin and out of shape. When I asked him, I found out that his family members had heard the saying that "hair affects the growth of wounds" and they would not even let him touch eggs, milk, fish and shrimp. They only had porridge and vegetables for every meal. During the blood test, the albumin was much lower than the normal value, and the growth rate of bone callus was three weeks slower than that of patients with the same injury. It's quite helpless to say that "fat food taboos" belong to the traditional dietary concept, and many people still believe it until now. However, from the perspective of modern medicine, most of these so-called "fat foods" are high-quality protein sources. As long as you are not allergic to these foods, eating them will not delay healing, but can provide enough raw materials for bone growth.

As for the often mentioned question of “whether you can eat spicy food”, it actually depends on your personal habits. I once had a patient who was born and raised in Sichuan. He wanted to eat spicy dan dan noodles the day after his radius fracture surgery. He couldn't stop him. He usually eats spicy food all the time. After eating, he didn't feel gastrointestinal discomfort or itching or redness of the wound. The follow-up examination showed that the wound healed very smoothly. But if you rarely eat spicy food and your gastrointestinal function is weak after surgery, you really need to eat less for a while, otherwise spicy food will cause diarrhea and heartburn, which will affect nutrient absorption, and the gain will not be worth the loss.

Of course, this does not mean that there is nothing to worry about. In some cases, you still need to make appropriate adjustments to your diet. For example, there was a retired aunt who had a bone soup every day after her fracture. She drank three bowls of it a day for two weeks. During the reexamination, her blood lipids were three times higher than the normal value, which almost caused pancreatitis. That pot of milky white soup was basically full of fat, and there really wasn’t much calcium that could be absorbed by the body. Drinking too much would only make things worse. Patients with underlying diseases should pay more attention. For example, patients with gout and fractures should try to eat less high-purine seafood and animal offal. Otherwise, a gout attack will be too painful to do rehabilitation exercises, which will really delay recovery.

Oh, by the way, it is really recommended to quit smoking and drinking as much as possible. It is not a taboo passed down by the elders. It is supported by clear research: nicotine will constrict blood vessels and reduce the blood supply to the fracture end, and alcohol will inhibit the activity of osteoblasts, which will slow down the speed of bone healing. If you can't help but smoke less and take a sip of wine, it will not directly lead to nonunion, but it is definitely best if you can avoid it.

To put it bluntly, you don't need to spend too much time on "what not to eat". The core is to think more about "how to eat enough nutrition". Ensure adequate intake of high-quality protein, calcium and vitamin D every day, and get more sun. It is more effective than any dietary remedies.