The results offer a dose of hope for millions of Americans—and a future with more personalized care recommendations.
Health officials estimate that nearly 21% of all adults in the U.S. experience chronic pain. For many of those individuals, Johns Hopkins says there’s often no diagnosis to explain the condition. But recent research could be providing new insights on this front—and how certain vitamins and mineral levels could be related.
Research published in the peer-reviewed journal Pain Practice found that having low levels of five key nutrients was associated with “severe chronic pain.” The July 2025 study, led by researchers from the University of Arizona Health Sciences, could pave the way for “personalized nutritional strategies” for managing chronic pain, according to a university news release.
The researchers used data from the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Database to analyze the micronutrient status of three groups of people: people without pain, people with mild-to-moderate chronic pain, and people with severe chronic pain. They focused on vitamin D, vitamin B12, vitamin C, folate, and magnesium, which have been “commonly associated” with chronic pain.
The findings show that people with severe chronic pain were more likely to have severe deficiencies of vitamin D, vitamin B12, folate, and magnesium. But even just lower levels, not deficiency, of those vitamins and minerals were associated with severe chronic pain.
Senior author Julie Pilitsis, MD, PhD, said this approach is novel because “you are looking at the patient holistically to see what could be going on systemically that is easily modifiable,” specifically dietary changes as opposed to medications.
The findings for vitamin C were more varied, however. Men with mild-to-moderate and severe chronic pain were more likely to have low or borderline low levels of vitamin C. Borderline and severe vitamin C deficiency was also associated with chronic pain in men.
The study population was large and diverse, according to the authors. They also found that vitamin and mineral deficiencies associated with chronic pain were more frequent in some specific racial and ethnic groups. “The finding that surprised us the most was that Asian females had higher vitamin B12 levels than expected,” said co-author Deborah Morris, PhD, a research laboratory manager in the Department of Neurosurgery. “Asian females with severe chronic pain had the highest vitamin B12 levels overall. We were expecting it to be lower.”
The hope, according to the researchers, is that their findings have the potential to improve the quality of life—and reduce opioid usage—in those with chronic pain. Always check with a doctor or pharmacist first before taking any new vitamins or minerals.
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