Recently, there has been a surge in published research that looks at diet and arthritis. Once thought to be the result of either inescapable genetics or mechanically-caused problems, scientists are finally realizing that what we put in our mouths can be the main culprit or at least a deeply involved accessory in the demise of joints.
Today, we’ll examine what people eat that not only throw fuel on the fire of arthritis but also what actually helps to cool it down and reverse the damage.
When many experts in the field of natural health alternatives consider how to manage or even reverse chronic diseases and conditions, one of the very first places they look is to diet.
This is typically because most every chronic condition that has its roots in inflammation responses can be traced to either too much of offending, inflammation-causing foods or not enough of the healing ones. Or, as what is most likely, a combination of both.
So today we will look at what scientists and health food researchers have been discovering and proving over and over- that some careful journaling and a little diet-tinkering can go a long way to healing the body from within, naturally, and without the need for medications.
Below are the “Dos” and “Don’ts” upon which most all experts seem to agree:
1) Do- Start replacing processed versions of food and beverages for the raw or “naked” versions. If you eat seasonally available vegetables and fruits, the bounty of anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant foods in your local grocer’s produce section should start replacing the canned or frozen versions wherever possible.
Processing food adds a double-whammy of insult: it diminishes the nutritive content while adding damaging chemicals into the system.
2) Do- Start keeping a journal of what you eat and how you feel. Make a note chronologically of what’s in your meals as well as whenever you are feeling pain or flare-ups. This will help to identify offending foods or drinks in your diet so you can start tossing those out.
Our IBS guide has an excellent journal template if you are unsure of how to start one. Learn more here…
3) Do- Start drinking more water. Get rid of soft drinks, which serve as nothing more than a bubbly treat for your mouth. Once a soda or other wasteful beverage gets into the digestive system, the disruption to health is far more long-lasting than the brief time it actually tasted good.
4) Don’t- Eat a lot of dairy, wheat, or soy. These are the top three offenders to people with allergies. Gluten can cause innumerable problems and you don’t even have to have Celiac Disease to suffer potentially deadly consequences.
Several of our readers are finding out that they have gluten intolerances that are causing intensely damaging digestive and inflammatory problems, and within a few days of eliminating all gluten, they feel 100% better. The journal will help you identify if you are having an inflammation response to these foods.
5) Don’t- Overload on animal products. Studies have shown that the higher a person’s diet is in animal-based foods, the higher the risk of damaging inflammation responses. Diets high in red meat and animal fats have also been proven to lead easily to cardiovascular disease.
This secondary condition is one that people with RA and osteoarthritis are at higher risk of developing, anyway. Why add more risk to both conditions? Trade the ham loaf for spaghetti squash or sautéed greens and watch how quickly your pain slips away.
These simple steps might seem at first overwhelming if you are used to the same diet habits. But making simple changes like these over time can have amazing results. And after all, real results are what you are after in the first place, right?
Want even more detailed steps to completely eliminate arthritis in less than 30 days? Learn more here…
What are your thoughts on how to get started with these steps mentioned above? Make your comment below…
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My body confirms this is good advice. It has become totally intolerant of dairy, wheat, sugar and processed foods over the last few years as I move into the time of my life when this becomes a concern. It makes me grumpy sometimes to see people tucking in to these foods for 2 reasons. Firstly, and to my embarrassment, jealously – I can’t seem to get away with a small amount of these food types …even as a treat these days : (
….. and secondly, that people cannot see the damage this food is doing to them when they eat it in large amounts! I see people IN PAIN …WHO KNOW these foods are bad for them but they REFUSE to change their diet!?!? QUALITY OF LIFE PEOPLE. Make the change and enjoy a life with less pain and more energy. It has recently been stated that 70% of the population have some kind of adverse reaction to dairy…..70%! A little of what you fancy does you good …but a whole lot of it WILL make you sick!
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This is a bit outdated, guys. What causes inflammation is a diet based on low protein, overload of raw that kills stomach fire (talking from BIG experience), sugar and all sugar artificial substitites, overload of legumes (including ANY soy), canola oil, sesame oil (actually, any oil besides olive oil), lack of omega-e, vitamin A (which is highest in grass-fed source butter!), lack of probiotics (such as in grass fed source yogurt), lack of vitamin D (sun exposure!), vitamin C and quality protein and quality fat (daily avocado, nuts, yogurt and butter for instance).
For a patient of Arthritis,I always recommend:No protein except Dal of Moong,No dairy product except sweet Curd,No soy product,2 litres of water of fenugreek seeds,one glass of water of Vijaysaar wood-2 times a day(Morning/Evening),Hot fomentation of effected part followed by massage of blackpepper oil.100% cure in one month.
ARTHRITIS.
There can be few people if any who have not suffered from pain in their lower backs at some time in their lives. Back troubles are some of the most common complaints seen in a doctors office. In each year, about 2% of any general practioners patients consult him with backache.
Beverly had suffered intermittent mild to severe lower back pain for over 10 years. She told me that within a week of starting eating the way I recommended, she found that her pain had cleared up completely. She said; 'It only comes back when I have slipped of the wagon. I put it down to wheat, as my odd foray into chocolate land does'nt seem to bring it on.'
This case illustrates a simple case of cause and effect as, apart from studies of ancient people's, clinical trials have also shown that carbohydrates, particularlt cereals, in the diet may cause arthritis. They may also be responsible for other conditions.
Arthritis, a common plague of modern society, exists in two major forms;.
OSTEOARTHRITIS, which is caused by wear and tear and, consequently, is generally present only in the middle -aged or elderly; and.
RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS, which may be present in all ages.
Osteoarthritis has been found in the most ancient skeletal remains of humans and animals. But evidence of rheumatoid arthritis has not been identified earlier than 2750BC, a time when consumption of cereal grains had become widespread.
OSTEOARTHRITIS.
Osteoarthritis tends to accompany osteoporosis. Researchers at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit tested the hypothesis that women with arthritis had a lower bone density. They found a significant decrease in bone density in the legs of female patients with relatively mild osteoarthritis of the knee whether or not they had osteoporosis based on a spine bone density measurement. Osteoarthritis is known to be more prevalent in those who are obese. It's not surprising that joints protest at having to support a heavier body.
RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS.
Rheumatoid arthritis is never found in animal remains. Neither has it been found in the skeletal remains of corn eating peoples, such as Central American Indians. But it has been found to be present equally in all races and cultures eating wheat, rye and oats. This finding suggests that rheumatoid arthritis is a gluten-induced condition similiar to coeliac disease.
Today, arthritis and other rheumatic conditions are among the most prevalent diseases and the most frequent cause of disability. An American mortality and morbidity report published in 2001 estimated that some 43 million Americans had rheumatoid arthritis in 1997. This was up from 35 million in 1985 – an increase of nearly a quarter. All age groups were affected, including the working-age population, and prevalence increased with age. Prevalence was higher in females overall and for each age group. There is no reason to suppose that the situation is any different in Britain and other industrialized countries.
But in a survey of North American Indians in 1932, Dr Weston Price looked specifically for the prescence of arthritis in the more isolated groups. He found not one case, neither did he hear of a case. However, he said, 'at the point of contact with the foods of modern civilization many cases were found including ten bed-ridden cripples in a series of about twenty homes.' One five year old boy had been in bed with rheumatic fever, arthritis, and an acute heart involvement for two and a half years. His mother had been told that her boy would not recover, so severe were the complications.. She asked for Dr Price's assistance in planning a nutritional program for her boy. He tells us;.
'The important change that I made in this boy's dietary program was the removal of white flour products and in their stead the use of cracked or ground wheat and oats used with whole milk to which was added a small amount of specially high vitamin butter produced by cows pasturing on green wheat. Small doses of a high-vitamin, natural cod liver oil were also added. At this time the boy was so badly crippled with arthritis, in his swollen knees, wrists, and rigid spine, that he was bedfast and cried by the hour. With the improvement in his nutrition which was the only change made in his care, his acute pain rapidly subsided, his appetite greatly improved, he slept soundly and gained rapidly in weight.'
Rheumatoid arthritis is a complex auto-immune disease involving numerous environmental and genetic components, and similiar to a number of other auto-immune diseases found more often in coeliac patients.
Many studies of arthritis patients have demonstrated elevated antibody levels for gliadin (a protein found in gluten). While no large clinical tests have been undertaken specifically to examine the effectiveness of gluten-free diets in the treatment of arthritis, there are numerous case studies reporting alleviation of arthritis symptons with grain-free diets.
The other half of Dr Price's protocol – adding fat – is also supported by a recent study which showed that improving the ratio between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids by eating fish oils and other omega-3 rich oils is of benefit. It was not necessary to eat a lot however. The reported total intake of omega-3 fatty acids in the intervntion group was 3.1 grams per day, and of this, 1.2 grams were of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). That is just over half a teasponful in total. It is important not to overdo this.
It is also worth noting that cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality are increased in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and much of the excess cardiovascular morbidity appears to be due to atherosclerosis. This could be a pointer to a common causitive factor between the two diseases, although it could also be that conventional arthritis treatment increases cardiovascular risk.
VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON'S EXPERIENCE.
The anthropologist, Dr Vilhjalmur Stefansson, didn't always take his own advice. As an explorer, he had lived on a no-carb diet for many years and believed in it. However, from about 1927 to 1955 he ate a conventional western diet. Over time he put on weight – to a maximum of 184 lbs (83.6 kg) To manage his weight, Stefansson tried cutting down on calorie intake for some years but only lost 5 lbs. He also had noticed that he was developing a stiffness in one knee. This gradually worsened and, by the time he was 75, Stefansson also had increasing soreness in both his hips and shoulder joints. Eventually, in 1955, he decided to resort to the 'Stone Age' all-fat-meat diet that he had used on his Artic explorations. It worked. Not only did it lose his excess weight, the diet cured his arthritis. Stefansson's wife remarked;.
'As his knee stiffened, he began to go up and down stairs one step at a time.
One day, some months after the start of our meat diet, he found to his surprise.
that he could use both legs with equal facility in climbing the stairs. Astonished,
he proceeded down. When he had reached the foot of the stairs, without pain or.
stiffness, he shouted for me to come and see.'
STEFANSSON ADDED;
'I did indeed shout for Evelyn, because I had just discovered something that I had.
not forecast to her because I had not foreseen it. The recovery of not only my stiff.
right knee but of all my joints, blessedly my typing fingers, had been "magical." '.
Stefansson lived on his "Stone Age" diet until his death in 1962 at the age of 83, with no further problems with his joints.
Taken from the book 'TRICK and TREAT, by a Barry Groves. (P. 367-370)
Good tips for sure.
I found Yael Gal’s comment on inflammation interesting. Could you please
write about blood pressure problems caused by a tensed up vascular system. I can’t seem to relax the arteries with meditation practices. I guess I’m a Type A personality which probably contributes to finding meditation difficult. Any suggestions, herbal or otherwise that might be more effective?
Thanks Helen, we are what we eat and good eating habits are started from childhood even as a baby.
Definitely changing our diet is key to curing health problems. Doctors are trained pharmacidical distirbuters. Education is your success. Eat more raw food.
I am very much agree with nDr.Shyam Narain Mehrotra and thank you very much for sparing your pricless time to write this meaningful comment.Will you kindly write some thing regularly on other topics like Diabetes and indigestion too.
There are lots of mis-information in this article. Drink more water? Tap water is about as toxic as it gets, high quality water filters are necessary, especially to take out the fluoride, otherwise you are just making a bad situation worse. Many of the statements in this article have not been thought through. Keep off dairy products? A world of billions of people have been brought up on milk, over thousands of years. Natural milk, from naturally fed animals is as healthy as it gets. Do not compare that milk sewage sold in supermarkets which is pasteurised, homogenised, sterilised, semi-skimmed, long life poison with real milk. Or the by -products made from such man made processed poisonous milk that is called 'dairy' products. As regards 'animal' products, by far the majority of the human family have lived mainly from the food that animals provide, milk, meat, fat, and they have been doing that for thousands of years in all parts of the world. What about where you get your meat from? Is it from intensive farming? What have they been fed on? If you eat right you do not need to eat so called anti-inflammatory foods. Who are these people who at a stroke of the pen put forward such garbage, they are the same people who have misled the many into eating the most man made processed foods that big brother sells in his corporate supermarkets, that have given us the sickest society ever known. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and people have certainly confirmed how poisonous foods are, as they leave the supermarkets and go to the doctors surgery to pick up their plethora of pills and medications. The 'experts' are well paid for by big business, there are not many of integrity, they have comfortable jobs, and they certainly do not want to rock the boat that keeps them afloat.
There is an excellent book called "Eat to Beat arthritis" – one author is Margaret Fulton and the other a PhD in nutrition. First advice is to take a week to give up coffee – lots of other hints follow. It worked miracles for me.
The article is a good one but it left out the most dangerous thing for an arthritis sufferer it eat – refined SUGAR! Sugar fuels arthritis as it creates acidity and inflammation in the body. So do dairy products, vegetable oils, and grains. This scenario attracts yeast and fungi which produce mycotoxins (yeast poisons)to add to the misery. See The Yeast Connection and Recaging the Beast. Also, patients with rheumatoid arthritis are extremely allergic to dairy products. The yeast-free diet will neutralize acidity, inflammation, and arthritis in short order.
Joints requires nutrition. This means gelatin for collagen that is used to build ligaments/ tendon/ cartilage and flexible bones, and bonemeal for bone minerals and electrolytes. This is called soup and one may add vegetables or even fruits, grains, seeds, nuts into the mixture with hebs & spices. Nobody is ever home any more. Families are dying out and children are suffering the ravages of malnutrition and de-socialization. The healing is in our hands, with knowledge. We forget that food is the most important value for life and that children are the future, replaced by pets. As a society, we have lost it. Save yourself & yours. Merry Christmas.