When preparing a patient for major surgery, doctors routinely consider a wide range of factors. Blood pressure and heart function may be checked, blood tests carried out, medications reviewed, and plans made for anesthesia and postoperative pain relief. But growing scientific evidence suggests there is another factor that deserves greater attention: the patient’s micronutrient status. New research involving women undergoing surgery for breast cancer has found that those who were deficient in vitamin D before their operation were around three times more likely to experience significant pain afterwards. They also required substantially more opioid painkillers. […]

Every year, millions of people undergo surgery expecting the operation itself to be the main challenge. Yet a major scientific review published in 2020 uncovered a […]