Diet and Arthritis
You are what you eat and this adage is of value to control a number of different conditions that ail us. There’s a nutritional approach to the alleviation of the stiff inflamed joints that cause pain and suffering to people diagnosed with arthritis.
One such diet was developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. It is appropriately called the Johns Hopkins diet. In clinical studies, researchers found a 25% decrease in stiffness, overall discomfort and swollen joints in the participants who adhered to the diet. The Johns Hopkins diet includes two or more servings per week of cold water fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring or cod. The diet is a healthy diet rich in protein and rich in the good fats like omega- 3 fatty acids and lower in carbohydrates.
By adhering to a diet such as the Johns Hopkins diet, you would be eating a healthy balanced diet low in the “bad” fats and carbohydrates. Inevitably, you would shed pounds if you strictly stayed on this kind of diet. Weight loss would relieve the stressor of the extra pounds on your bones and joints. The result would be a win-win situation. Besides helping you with the discomfort of arthritis by loading a lot of omega-3 fatty acids into your diet, this plan would help you to lose unwanted pounds. You would look and feel better and the added bonus would be better relief from arthritis symptoms.
Most other dietary advice from alternative medicine literature have similar kinds of diets. Most agree that you should avoid saturated fats, white flour and sugar, red meat, ham, chemical additives, yeast, milk and dairy products. All of the above items are more likely to increase inflammation and invoke allergies. Avoiding these foods will, again, lead to weight loss as a pleasant feature as well as work as your own natural arthritis remedy. All nutritional literature agreed on advising a higher intake of omega-3 fatty acids.
