I've only recently realized that I seem to have arthritis in the hands (confirmation by the doctor still pending, but 99% sure). I did notice that my symptoms seem to be correlated with what I eat, so I'd be interested to hear from others about similar experiences. Any tips (from personal experience) for what foods work to reduce arthritis, and what to avoid? Thanks!
Many of our "diseases" often have a strong inflammatory component. JakeNN's first link is excellent starting point, not only for arthritis, but for heart disease, brain health, GI health, etc. There are a lot of peer-reviewed, long term studies on these topics. Short version is that plant-based, low saturated fat (and low overall fat) diets (MIND, Esselstyn, Ornish) are a key component. One thing important to note about the Mediterranean diet is getting a bottle of olive oil and dumping it all over your food really isn't a part of it.
I've suffered from one of the above mentioned diseases and the conventional wisdom is infuriatingly wrong. I didn't have to suffer what I did had I known 10 years ago what I've learned in the last 2.5 years. It really sucks knowing that I was essentially in a very preventable "accident". A big issue is our cultures have pretty rigid views on what to eat and it's so ingrained that people can't imagine eating any other way.
I won't belabor the point here but if anyone is interested in more info, message me.
Generally, a plant-based diet has a huge multitude of benefits. My daughter, a doctor at age 51, still runs Ironman. She eats a vegan diet.
Generally, a plant-based diet has a huge multitude of benefits. My daughter, a doctor at age 51, still runs Ironman. She eats a vegan diet.
Agreed but those who advocate a Keto diet seem to experience similar benefits consuming lots of meat. The mainstream medical advice that hinges around symptomatic relief can be as confusing as a series of posts on Seabreeze. Additionally, what works for one will fail another. The vegan/vegetarian diet can be extremely healthy when managed right, including the quality of the foodstuffs consumed. With arthritis being a type of inflammation there is a possibility that it is affected by environmental toxins. Considering what they feed some of our animals it is no wonder that people on vegan diets come out more healthy. The same is true for our fresh fruit and veggies. I have even heard that some brands or extra virgin olive oil gets diluted with other oils, making the cheaper but removing the benefits of that product. We are what we eat, so they say.
I've only recently realized that I seem to have arthritis in the hands (confirmation by the doctor still pending, but 99% sure). I did notice that my symptoms seem to be correlated with what I eat, so I'd be interested to hear from others about similar experiences. Any tips (from personal experience) for what foods work to reduce arthritis, and what to avoid? Thanks!
Bread would be the big one for me. Used to get swelling in the finger joints, gone now after ditching bread.
Perfect question for chatgpt.
No artritis yet (48yo) but taking care of my body so I can sail as often and as long as I can.
Zero alcohol, very little refined sugar (hard to avoid completely)
Very balanced diet. If I eat grains it's mostly whole.
Lots of veggies of all sorts, legumes, whole rice, fruits, lemon juice, lots of water, etc. Meat and fish.
Most frequent foods are: bananas & avocados,
This had a big effect on my hand arthritis.
I've found that half the recommended dose works well enough.
Might be worth a try.
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Turmeric everyday. You don't need to buy expensive supplements either, Spencer's supermarket spice brand does just as well. Just sprinkle it on your food and if taken with black pepper it works even better. The difference between when I take it and if I don't, for a few days, is quite remarkable. Wish I'd known about it years ago.
You can test what your body can tolerate and what might be the source of the inflammation:
1. get your blood tested for food allergies (i believe they can check for 150 foods)
2. get your dna sampled, use service to read it and determine what foods are genetically compatible with your body.
Food: try cut out the bull** first. Eat proper home made food
Alcohol: don't drink for a month and see how you feel. (seems to help a bunch of people, cutting down will not do the trick)
Vegetarian or vegan is very hard to do properly (lack of B-vitamins and others). You will look frail after a couple of years. But maybe I am wrong.
Keto is an option to try. Why not try for 1 month and see how you feel?
Carnivore is also an option. Cow meat only. You can use it as an elimination diet: do it for 1 month to clear out your system. Then 1 by 1 introduce foods and see how you react to them. Google revero.
Bread would be the big one for me. Used to get swelling in the finger joints, gone now after ditching bread.
This (i.e. tumeric) had a big effect on my hand arthritis.
I've found that half the recommended dose works well enough.
Turmeric everyday... The difference between when I take it and if I don't, for a few days, is quite remarkable. Wish I'd known about it years ago.
Thanks, that is exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Additional reports will be appreciated!
My (putative) hand arthritis flared up during our recent 3 months in Oz. One big dietary change was the bread. At home, my wife usually bakes bread, using organic and close to 100% whole grain products, and a mix of grains that constantly varies. The bread we had in Oz seemed to be close to 100% wheat, and even the typical "whole meal" bread seemed to be low in actual "whole" content. I already had the suspicion that this contributed; on days where I ate muesli instead of bread in the mornings, my symptoms where lighter.
I've looked into the underlying science a bit. Muesli with yoghurt (greek in my case) contains a lot more dietary fiber as well as "good" bacteria. The bacteria can replace some of the "bad" bacteria that have been linked to arthritis, and they produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) when they ferment the fiber. The SCFAs reduce systemic inflammation, with direct effects on T-cell populations (Th17 and Treg) that play a role in arthritis. There's plenty of studies that support the positive effect of probiotics.
I'll wait a couple of days to see what the x-rays and the doctor say, but I'll probably look into tumeric, and start eating more cinnamon.
The problem with Keto (all that meat) is calcium and the resultant arterial plaque. If you have risk factors for heart disease (in my case it's hereditary), then keto ain't for you.
Since I grew up in cattle ranch country, switching from at least a little meat to all-plant is pretty much culturally impossible. LOL
..Vegetarian or vegan is very hard to do properly (lack of B-vitamins and others). You will look frail after a couple of years. But maybe I am wrong.
Maybe...
I take a B vitamin supplement everyday - no problem. It's only hard if a) you live in a food desert (many small towns in the US for example) and b) have very little cooking skills. Otherwise, it's mostly learning new places to shop, new recipes and flavors. I windsurf as long as anyone else at my local at an age where many of my peers are riding around in golf carts.
This guy is a vegetarian and he seems to be doing okay: www.nicoprien.com
"The close contact to the nature has inspired him to give back to our planet by becoming vegetarian, offsetting his CO2 footprint and taking part in plastic offset programs. He also started his sustainable fashion brand surla."
boardsurfr, interesting about your wheat sensitivity. My niece had the opposite experience: sensitive in the US but not in Europe to bread and pastas. Perhaps she's sensitive to potassium bromate which are allowed in the US but not Australia or the EU.
Since you are interested in gut flora, do investigate further the roles of plant vs animal based food on gut biome. It's significant in both cardiology and gastroenterology; as well as even psychiatry.
Vegetarian or vegan is very hard to do properly (lack of B-vitamins and others). You will look frail after a couple of years.
Nope.
The elephant in the room is that the foods we consume vary in quality and some are heavy in chemicals for marketing and production reasons. They (the experts) like to tell us that we don't have to worry about that but if read the odd data sheet or two you will begin to wonder. Likewise, because an apple is red it does not necessarily taste like it is ripe. Some fruit and veggies would never get to market unless they were dunked in chemicals. Similarly with meat and poultry, what they eat defines them. If it is just about taste, then don't bother arguing, just go down to Maccas or KFC and dig in! For the more astute, have look at what is written on the food labels, taking note that much of the food in the supermarkets is processed and packaged in a way that makes you want to buy it. Is it really good for you? Perhaps there are better options.
boardsurfr, interesting about your wheat sensitivity.
It's definitely not wheat sensitivity. I'm perfectly fine eating lots of bread made mostly with organic whole grain wheat.
The problems seem to happen when I eat "white" wheat bread (and I put most "whole meal" bread I had in Oz into this category). With 2 meals a day where bread is a main component, the body simply does not get enough fiber. Eating out for the third meal regularly did not help either, since that often meant more refined wheat (in pies, pastry, pizza, pasta, ...) and an extra dose of salt, which also has been linked to worsening of autoimmune diseases.
Vegetarian or vegan is very hard to do properly (lack of B-vitamins and others). You will look frail after a couple of years. But maybe I am wrong.
Yes, indeed, you are wrong. I've been a vegetarian for 43 years now. I don't feel frail, and my windsurfing is still improving. That's based on objective measurements - 14 new PBs in the last 3 months in 5 different GPSTC categories, including a 41.4 knot top speed. Vitamin B12, D, and E pills help, but then, I've never really looked much into healthy food. Chocolate and beer are still included in my "essential food groups" list
.
Be careful subscribing to this food or that food is bad based on other people's experience. Everyone is different and what is causing your flare-ups could be vastly different from someone else. I know there is a community of people online who have suffered horribly with arthritis and other ailments and through an extreme elimination diet end up being carnivore for a period of time and then slowly add things back one by one being sure each doesn't cause them to start going backward again. In some cases it's been more than just carnivore needed to get the initial response its meat only from Ruminants (animals with more than one stomach) .
Lookup Mikhaila Peterson's lion diet for interest's sake - her story is amazing from having joints replaced due to arthritis to being clear.
I am not suggesting this is what you need to do (maybe you do, maybe you don't), Just be aware, being vegetarian is no 100% safeguard against these types of issues.
A friend of mine had to avoid tomatoes unless non acidic ( Roma? ) plus I think potatoes.. She had really bad rheumatoid arthritis in her hands and this helped .
A friend of mine had to avoid tomatoes unless non acidic ( Roma? ) plus I think potatoes.. She had really bad rheumatoid arthritis in her hands and this helped .
Yeh that sounds like nightshade vegetables - it's not completely uncommon for them to cause issues and is exactly the type of food most people would least expect to be problematic who would think tomato and potatoes would be the cause of problems!
I have a son who was horribly sick when he was a kid, tonsil problems, ears, sinus heaps of vomiting etc it was a case of a round of antibiotics to clear it up then it'd come straight back. Everyone was stumped until finally, an ENT doc asked if by chance (as we were walking out the door) if there was any food that he craved and ate a lot of. All we could think of was Dairy, between Milk, Cheese & Yoghurt he was probably consuming it 4+ times a day (he was about 3 at the time). 1 week of dairy cleared him right up after months and months of sickness. This proved to us how powerful foods are. Also in his case after about 7 or 8 years he could consume it again with little issue.
and an extra dose of salt, which also has been linked to worsening of autoimmune diseases.
Salt intake varies a lot between people. If we are doing strenuous exercise then rehydration requires more than just water. Salt can be part of this. You may notice that when you are lacking salt it tastes sweet but if you have too much it tends to be more bitter. I think that part of the reason why salt got its bad name was when office workers combined sitting all day with a big feed of fast food. Likewise, I have seen children consume very large packets of potato chips on their own, in one sitting. That is excess. On the other hand, salt with iodine can be beneficial.
Salt intake is an interesting topic. Similar to what we think about fat in diets, what we know about salt is evolving, but the public health guidelines are often lagging behind. In the US, the dietary guidelines still only have an upper limit (2.3 g sodium, corresponding to 5 g salt). This is suggested for everyone, regardless of blood pressure. No lower limit is given. The guidelines are based on the effect of salt on hypertension, and the negative health effects of hypertension. If you study entire populations, high salt intake is linked to high blood pressure, and poor health outcomes.
There are two problems with the current guidelines:
- they ignore individual variation to how we react to salt (see figure below)
- they do not provide a recommended or minimum intake, but not getting enough salt is also bad for your health
The individual sensitivity to salt is something we are really just starting to understand. Here is a figure from a recent clinical study that shows very large individual variation:

(Picture from the GenSalt study, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8192427/).
So there is the small (blue) group (about 20% in this study) where blood pressure increases a lot when eating more salt. But for about half of the people (yellow), the reaction is a lot smaller. For a third group (red), the effect of salt is actually reversed: more salt reduces blood pressure. In a population study, all these people get grouped together, and the larger effect of the "high sensitivity" group dominates. But for about half of all people, the guideline makes little sense, and for some people (the "sodium resistance" group), it may even be wrong.
The lack of a recommended or minimum intake is another problem. Our body needs sodium to function (and more so when we sweat due to physical activity, as MarkSSC pointed out). Simple guidelines like "salt is bad - eat less of it / avoid it" will have some people cut down their consumption drastically. They are based and overly simplistic assumptions, like a linear relation between salt intake and blood pressure. Multiple studies have shown a J (or V)- shaped relation, though: too little salt will also raise blood pressure, and have negative health effects.
The relation between salt intake and inflammation is even fuzzier than that. When I dug into that, the only studies that people were referring to where cell cultures and animal studies, which showed that inflammation markers are higher if you bath the cells in salt, or feed animals a high-salt diet. I'll need to see if I can find more studies, though.
Hi,
I have had a long history with autoimmune disease including coeliac disease and also developing another which is yet to be confirmed but most likely a rhuematological disease like Lupus :(
I have done lots of research over the last couple of years and the common consensus that I see among functional doctors is that ppl suffering arthritis would be well served to give up all grains including all gluten, rice, corn, quinoa etc. Also nightshades are very problematic as mentioned above.
It seems daunting but it is totally doable.
I have done the above and basically eat a Pegan diet which is paleo vegan. No grains ( can have a small amount of rice or quinoa as a treat once or twice a week) no nightshade vegetables, no eggs, no peanuts and some other nuts, no gluten or dairy no unhealthy oils. Can eat loads of foods basically paleo, lots of veggies and grass fed meats, healthy oils, coconut etc.
If interested search Mark Hyman arthritis on youtube and you will find lots of compelling info there. Also Steven Gundry, Terry Wahls etc.
Going off grains is hard at first but since doing so and eating a plant rich diet high in fibre etc I have more energy and more even throughout the day and much less aches and pains and inflammation in the body generally.
Hi,
I have had a long history with autoimmune disease including coeliac disease and also developing another which is yet to be confirmed but most likely a rhuematological disease like Lupus :(
I have done lots of research over the last couple of years and the common consensus that I see among functional doctors is that ppl suffering arthritis would be well served to give up all grains including all gluten, rice, corn, quinoa etc. Also nightshades are very problematic as mentioned above.
It seems daunting but it is totally doable.
I have done the above and basically eat a Pegan diet which is paleo vegan. No grains ( can have a small amount of rice or quinoa as a treat once or twice a week) no nightshade vegetables, no eggs, no peanuts and some other nuts, no gluten or dairy no unhealthy oils. Can eat loads of foods basically paleo, lots of veggies and grass fed meats, healthy oils, coconut etc.
If interested search Mark Hyman arthritis on youtube and you will find lots of compelling info there. Also Steven Gundry, Terry Wahls etc.
Going off grains is hard at first but since doing so and eating a plant rich diet high in fibre etc I have more energy and more even throughout the day and much less aches and pains and inflammation in the body generally.
Glad to know that works for you.
Stating that giving up all grains is "the common consensus" for "ppl suffering arthritis" among "functional doctors" is quite misleading, though. There certainly is a subgroup of people, including MDs, that has concluded that carbohydrates/grains are bad for everyone. But that is a fringe group, not common consenus.
For someone suffering coeliac disease, like you do, giving up most grains makes a lot more sense, since many grains contain some kind of gluten. The immune reaction against gluten that characterizes coeliac disease will cause your immune system go go into general overdrive, which in turn will make any other autoimmune and inflammatory processes worse. So, for someone with coeliac disease, an improvement of arthritis symptoms would be expected when going grain free.
The two aspects of your diet that there is "common" consensus on with regards to arthritis are lots of veggies (and dietary fiber in general) and healthy oils. These are two key components of the Mediterranean diet, for which there is plenty of evidence that it helps, both from population studies and controlled clinical studies. We are even to start to understand why these things work (like the immune regulation from SFAs that result from a high fiber diet, and the resulting changes in the gut microbiome).
In my case, the doctor diagnosed me with osteoarthritis, and was almost dying of non-surprise, given my active life style and age. I don't quite agree with his "that's to be expected" attitude, or his only suggestion to use cream with NSAIDs to control symptoms. It seems that switching to a better diet (more veggies and other fiber sources, much less refined grain, less salt) still makes a big difference. I've also added tumeric, which seems to help. My symptoms are currently mostly gone, with just a little bit of itching at the affected joints, mostly after days where I allowed myself to much "bad" food. But with water temps here still being below 10 C, I'm mostly inactive now, and we'll have to see what happens when we get back onto the water on a regular basis again.
The problem with Keto (all that meat) is calcium and the resultant arterial plaque. If you have risk factors for heart disease (in my case it's hereditary), then keto ain't for you.
Since I grew up in cattle ranch country, switching from at least a little meat to all-plant is pretty much culturally impossible. LOL
A few more problems with Keto: first is that we are not cats, we do not actually need to eat meat, at all, the second is that it is one of the things you might not want to do in the age of global warming. Eating meat is not good for the environment (or the animals).
The problem with Keto (all that meat) is calcium and the resultant arterial plaque. If you have risk factors for heart disease (in my case it's hereditary), then keto ain't for you.
Since I grew up in cattle ranch country, switching from at least a little meat to all-plant is pretty much culturally impossible. LOL
A few more problems with Keto: first is that we are not cats, we do not actually need to eat meat, at all, the second is that it is one of the things you might not want to do in the age of global warming. Eating meat is not good for the environment (or the animals).
I am sorry to say that these comments simply parrot what is the populist 'scientific' opinions of our day. The inclusion of the term 'global warming' is out of date because they changed it to 'climate change' when the evidence did not match up with the theory. Keto diets do work for some, I don't use it because it does not suit me. Cows provide plenty of manure which the plants like so I do not blame them for being bad for the environment. Before we go too far, we should all remember that the toxins used in the manufacturing process are harmful to the environment.
I enjoy reading the comments here as much as anyone but we should stop to think before we comment. This thread is about health matters but how much of the advice given is personal opinion.
The problem with Keto (all that meat) is calcium and the resultant arterial plaque. If you have risk factors for heart disease (in my case it's hereditary), then keto ain't for you.
Since I grew up in cattle ranch country, switching from at least a little meat to all-plant is pretty much culturally impossible. LOL
A few more problems with Keto: first is that we are not cats, we do not actually need to eat meat, at all, the second is that it is one of the things you might not want to do in the age of global warming. Eating meat is not good for the environment (or the animals).
I am sorry to say that these comments simply parrot what is the populist 'scientific' opinions of our day. The inclusion of the term 'global warming' is out of date because they changed it to 'climate change' when the evidence did not match up with the theory. Keto diets do work for some, I don't use it because it does not suit me. Cows provide plenty of manure which the plants like so I do not blame them for being bad for the environment. Before we go too far, we should all remember that the toxins used in the manufacturing process are harmful to the environment.
I enjoy reading the comments here as much as anyone but we should stop to think before we comment. This thread is about health matters but how much of the advice given is personal opinion.
Oh my, "cows provide plenty manures which the plants like" a real gem!
There is first, the little problem of global warming, and second the catastrophic damage to the biosphere. About 60% of all mammal biomass on the planet is livestock. Of the rest 35% is humans, and the remaining 5% is all wild life, terrestrial and marine. It's annihilation worse than a meteorite strike. 70 billion land animals killed each year. Keto? Eat plants!
This is where an interesting thread about arthritis and nutrition gets derailed and becomes a political football.??
I am sorry to say that these comments simply parrot what is the populist 'scientific' opinions of our day. The inclusion of the term 'global warming' is out of date because they changed it to 'climate change' when the evidence did not match up with the theory.
You are showing remarkable talent to write bloody nonsense. Your quote around scientific indicates that you are quite skeptical about science in general. To clarify - there is no real disagreement among client scientists that global warming is happening. This conclusion based is supported by 99% of climate scientists.
The reason that the term "climate change" rather than "global warming" is now used because it is more accurate. For most people in affluent nations, the global warming in itself poses little thread, since they (a) live in temperate climate zones, (b) have the luxury of air conditioning in their homes, cars, and at work, and (c) are wealthy enough that negative changes in agricultural production do not really affect them. All of these do not apply to much larger parts of the human population who live in poorer and hotter climates.
"Climate change" instead points out that the rising global temperatures have consequences that affect people a lot more than just a couple more degrees: droughts, more intense storm, rising sea levels that will eliminate some island nations, and even major cold spells in areas that never saw them before. The last one is perhaps a bit confusing, but that's what Texas (and other parts of the US) are seeing. I was in Texas three years ago when people were freezing to death during a cold spell cause by extreme weather never seen before (which is why the power went down, because winterizing power plants and infrastructure had not been necessary before). In every year since then, Texas saw similar cold spells in the winter. I am sure that many Texans saw the cold as "proof" that global warming is not happening. But summer temperatures kept setting new records in the same years.
Similar patterns are seen elsewhere in the world. Germany has seen extended times of extremely low rainfall, causing stops to all ship traffic on major rivers, and extreme rainfalls, in the same year. Large parts of the western US have seen similar patterns on a larger time scale.
Hi,
I have had a long history with autoimmune disease including coeliac disease and also developing another which is yet to be confirmed but most likely a rhuematological disease like Lupus :(
I have done lots of research over the last couple of years and the common consensus that I see among functional doctors is that ppl suffering arthritis would be well served to give up all grains including all gluten, rice, corn, quinoa etc. Also nightshades are very problematic as mentioned above.
It seems daunting but it is totally doable.
I have done the above and basically eat a Pegan diet which is paleo vegan. No grains ( can have a small amount of rice or quinoa as a treat once or twice a week) no nightshade vegetables, no eggs, no peanuts and some other nuts, no gluten or dairy no unhealthy oils. Can eat loads of foods basically paleo, lots of veggies and grass fed meats, healthy oils, coconut etc.
If interested search Mark Hyman arthritis on youtube and you will find lots of compelling info there. Also Steven Gundry, Terry Wahls etc.
Going off grains is hard at first but since doing so and eating a plant rich diet high in fibre etc I have more energy and more even throughout the day and much less aches and pains and inflammation in the body generally.
Glad to know that works for you.
Stating that giving up all grains is "the common consensus" for "ppl suffering arthritis" among "functional doctors" is quite misleading, though. There certainly is a subgroup of people, including MDs, that has concluded that carbohydrates/grains are bad for everyone. But that is a fringe group, not common consenus.
For someone suffering coeliac disease, like you do, giving up most grains makes a lot more sense, since many grains contain some kind of gluten. The immune reaction against gluten that characterizes coeliac disease will cause your immune system go go into general overdrive, which in turn will make any other autoimmune and inflammatory processes worse. So, for someone with coeliac disease, an improvement of arthritis symptoms would be expected when going grain free.
The two aspects of your diet that there is "common" consensus on with regards to arthritis are lots of veggies (and dietary fiber in general) and healthy oils. These are two key components of the Mediterranean diet, for which there is plenty of evidence that it helps, both from population studies and controlled clinical studies. We are even to start to understand why these things work (like the immune regulation from SFAs that result from a high fiber diet, and the resulting changes in the gut microbiome).
In my case, the doctor diagnosed me with osteoarthritis, and was almost dying of non-surprise, given my active life style and age. I don't quite agree with his "that's to be expected" attitude, or his only suggestion to use cream with NSAIDs to control symptoms. It seems that switching to a better diet (more veggies and other fiber sources, much less refined grain, less salt) still makes a big difference. I've also added tumeric, which seems to help. My symptoms are currently mostly gone, with just a little bit of itching at the affected joints, mostly after days where I allowed myself to much "bad" food. But with water temps here still being below 10 C, I'm mostly inactive now, and we'll have to see what happens when we get back onto the water on a regular basis again.
I don't quite agree with his "that's to be expected" attitude,
Ageism is alive and thriving.
I had some stitches recently . Straight after she finished I asked the young mid 20's woman if I could push myself cycling straight away. She gave it some thought and said it should be ok and then added " Good on you..."...She meant well but this idea that anyone over 60 is past it is really annoying.
.
I've taken to showing medical specialists my profile pic so they know what I want to get back to..Once they have seen that there mind is in the right place to advise me. Insert rolled eyes icon..![]()
well this got silly, for those advocating plants are the solution go look at what monoculture does to the earth. To be fair, the vast majority of food production methods are bad in one way or another, there is no right and wrong unless we go back to roaming the wild and doing our best with what we find in nature... and that is not about to happen.
So you may as well work out which foods make you feel and perform the best and roll with it.