What Is Arthritis and Is There Anything We Can Do?

Over the age of 60, nine out of ten people are living with arthritis, yes that is 90% of the population after 60 get it.

With such a high proportion of the population getting and suffering with arthritis, is it just something we should accept is coming to us and learn to live with it?

Maybe not…

So, what is arthritis?

There are many forms of arthritis, I am sure you have heard of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and juvenile arthritis to name a few.

What is interesting however is essentially they all have the same aggravating factor and that is inflammation.

It is the inflammatory response in the joints of arthritis that cause pain and progression, therefore if we can do something about that, then we can have a positive effect.

Firstly, though I can hear some of you saying, “well why not take anti-inflammatories?” Or “why don’t anti-inflammatories work?”

It is true that anti-inflammatories work on chemical cascades in the body to reduce inflammation, however they do this in a very unnatural way and come with many potential side effects.

The good news is that you can do a lot of this naturally and have just as good, if not better results.
It all comes down to the food we eat.

Have you heard the saying your food can either be the best form of medicine or the best form of poison? If you read last weeks blog then it will be ringing a bell!

Well the saying does have truth, so here are the things we should have and should avoid, to help our arthritis:

Avoid:

This one is so simple, yet so emotionally and habitually difficult to do.

The three things that cause the body to increase inflammation are:

1. Wheat

2. Dairy

3. Sugar

If you are really struggling with your arthritis, it is essential that you have at least a month with NO wheat, dairy or sugar!

Have:

When we look at what we can do from a nutrition point of view, the main things that comes up time and time again in the literature is increasing your ‘antioxidants’. These help to reduce ‘free radicals’ in the body that lead to inflammation, arthritis and illness.

Antioxidants are found in colour, any fruits and vegetables with colour are packed with antioxidants.

Therefore, make sure your diet is packed with good colorful, natural and preferably organic foods. However, we must remember that sugar is bad so to just use fruit to get these nutrients is a detriment.

The World Health Organisation recommends 10 portions of fruit and veg a day. My recommendation to you is 8 vegetables and 2 fruit.

Omega 3 fatty acids are also essential to improve the state of inflammation in the joints. These can be found in oily fish and wild game.

Spices, especially turmeric are fantastic for arthritis, bringing these into your cooking or making turmeric tea can be very effective.

So, to summarise the good stuff:

1. Lots of colorful vegetables

2. Omega 3

3. Turmeric

Remember with all these lifestyle choices, it is an accumulative effect over time. A couple of weeks will not make a lot of difference unfortunately, just like it didn’t take a couple of weeks to develop. Consistent good nutrition over months will make all the difference.

Happy Wednesday.

With love

Tom