Arthritis - Natural Cures and Diet Advice - Recommended Books

by Arthur Ritick
(UK)

Hello,

First congratulations on your excellent web site.

I can tell you of my fight with Arthritis. It first occurred many years ago, in my late thirties, when I was jogging which I eventually had to stop completely. The pain was in my knee which was attributed to the fact that in my youth I had played rugby, football & squash. The main damage was probably caused by Athletics because I was a hurdler & also triple jumper where the shock to the knees is very high. For a number of years I had been able to walk without problems & in fact my hobby was fell walking. A couple of years ago I started to experience severe pain just from walking.

I undertook some research & found two books particularly useful. The first was " Say No To Arthritis" by the nutritionist Partrick Holford. In this book he reviews the important research on the subject & their findings. Some supplements you take are anti-inflammatory, others build up cartilage, whilst some relieve pain. As a consequence I take a range of supplements on a daily basis. These include ginger, cats claw, Shark cartilage, glucosamine & mussel extract.

The second book I found both interesting & useful was " Win the war within" by Dr Floyd H. Chilton. He is a leader of a research team at a University in America specialising in Asthma. He chose this subject because he had an asthmatic son. However, he was persuaded to switch over to arthritis to help his sister who was becoming crippled with arthritis & complained that there was no original research into the subject. What he discovered was truly remarkable & that the answer lay not in conventional drugs but in the food we eat. Our bodies first developed over 100,000 generations by mainly eating fruits,nuts, & fish. Over a few hundred generations we farmed and ate wild game. Over the last 2 generations we have indulged in intensive factory farming. As a result the complex chemical make up that our bodies need to fight disease is being compromised. Dr Chilton provides a scientific analysis of the effect on our bodies. Particularly, the amount of arachidonic acid is too high, leading the bodies natural defence systems to over react, which results in the defence system attacking it's own body. This is because the amounts of GLA & EPA are in the wrong proportions by a factor of 10 times. GLA is of course better known as Evening Primrose Oil & EPA as Fish Oil.

Dr Chilton went on to claim that this phenomenon not only applied to arthritis but also possibly to a number of other common ailments. He listed the following as also likely to be caused by over active inflammation: Asthma, Inflammatory bowel disease,Obesity, Lupus, Allergies, Eczema, COPD, Diabetes & Artherosclerosis.

In addition he listed a number of other diseases that have a significant inflammatory component. These include the following Chronic diseases: Kidney failure, Hepatitis, Thyroid, Pancreatitis, Bronchitis & Osteoarthritis.He also suspects it may be involved in Alzheimer's Dementia & Cancer. In all these latter cases further work is required.

A large part of the book sets out what constitutes a healthy diet, which is largely following The Glycemic Index ( GI ) He also sets out the amount of arachidonic acid ( bad ) in each food. Unfortunately as this is American based it takes a bit of imagination to translate to a British equivalent.

However, I did notice that I had been eating Tuna sandwiches, every day for lunch, in the mistaken belief that they were healthy. Yet Dr Chilton's research showed that the American versions were very bad for creating arachidonic acid & I'm assuming this would apply to the UK versions too. Likewise farmed salmon is bad but wild is good. It all makes interesting reading & more believable as he is nothing to gain from the outcome.

As a result I try ( ! ) to follow the dietary recommendations a supplement my diet with the amounts of EPA & GLA as recommended by Dr Chilton. I was very surprised to find that these tablets, with levels recommended, were stocked by Holland & Barrett.

So far I have made steady progress, still doing my hill walking & with improved mobility. Probably if we didn't stop at the pub half way round our walk I would be doing even better !

I will advise of further progress.

Regards Arthur Ritick