Inflammatory Diet Associated with Earlier Death in Osteoarthritis Patients
More than half of North American adults over 65 years of age suffer from osteoarthritis, and recent studies show that inflammation is involved. An inflammatory diet can increase joint damage as well as diabetes and premature death. A study of 3804 patients with osteoarthritis found that patients who ate a high-inflammatory diet died at a significantly younger age than those who ate an anti-inflammatory diet.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia May Be The Same Disease
A recent study found that that fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome may actually be the same diseases. It is easy to understand the similarity of the two conditions with different names. Both are characterized by extreme muscle fatigue and tiredness as if a person had just run a marathon, even though they walked only a few feet. Both also involve sleep and memory problems.
Osteoarthritis and Inflammation
More than half of North American adults over 65 years of age suffer from osteoarthritis. It used to be that you would go to your doctor and tell them that you have pain in your knees, hips, hands or spine. Your doctor would order multiple x-rays and blood tests and most would come back normal, so they would then tell you, “Aha, you have osteoarthritis, ” which meant they didn’t have the foggiest idea why your joints hurt.
Colon Bacteria and Arthritis
Several recent research papers show that inflammatory types of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and reactive arthritis may be caused by harmful bacteria in your colon. Your colon is full of more than 100 trillion bacteria. Some are good and some are bad. The good bacteria are happy with what you eat and do not try to enter your colon cells, while the harmful colon bacteria are not happy with what you eat, so they try to enter the cells lining your colon.
Arthritis and Colon Bacteria (Long)
Several recent research papers show that inflammatory types of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and reactive arthritis may be caused by harmful bacteria in your colon. Your colon is full of more than 100 trillion bacteria. Some are good and some are bad. The good bacteria are happy with what you eat and do not try to enter your colon cells, while the harmful colon bacteria are not happy with what you eat, so they try to enter the cells lining your colon.
Exercise to Treat Arthritis
If you have joint pain, you should still keep moving. There is increasing evidence that exercise can help to treat and prevent osteoarthritis of the hips and knees. Low-intensity sessions of walking or cycling offered pain relief after just 2-12 weeks (BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, Feb 3, 2022;23(113)), and after joint replacement surgery (Sport Sci Rev, 2021;49(2):77-87).
Strength Training to Help Prevent and Treat Osteoporosis
All men and women will develop osteoporosis if they live long enough and the best way to prevent this increased risk for breaking bones may well be a resistance exercise program. A study from Romania found that a resistance training program markedly increased the bone density of osteoporotic women, average age 56 years, in just six months.
Preventing Osteoporosis
Everyone loses bone with aging. A review of 40 studies on almost 80,000 subjects found that more than 35 percent of people over 60 suffer from osteoporosis that increases risk for bone fractures and death. People who suffer osteoporotic hip fractures have a 20 percent chance of dying within the next year. If you have suffered bone fractures with minimal trauma, the odds are strong that you have osteoporosis.
Anti-Inflammatory Lifestyle to Treat Many Diseases
Many types of arthritis are believed to be caused by inflammation, where a person’s own immune system attacks and damages joints and other tissues in the body. An anti-inflammatory diet may help to control arthritis ) as well as giving its well-established benefit of helping to prevent heart attacks.
Arthritis and Colon Bacteria
A study of 1,388 women with hand arthritis, average age 61, showed that they had higher levels in their colons of the bacteria Bilophila and Desulfovibrio that try to invade their colon cells, as well as a lower level of the genus Roseburia that do not invade colon cells. An anti-inflammatory lifestyle has been shown to help grow healthful bacteria in your colon, which can help to treat arthritis.
Arthroscopic Knee Surgery is Usually Useless
I have said repeatedly that surgery to trim attached cartilage in the knee is usually worthless. I have seen many patients who have had cartilage removed by surgeons for an average charge of $5000, and then they must have a knee replacement several years later.
Lifestyle and Drugs to Treat Osteoporosis
On April 9, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new osteoporosis drug called Evenity. Bones are constantly changed by bone cells called osteoblasts that grow new bone and osteoclasts that remove old bone cells. Evenity is a monoclonal antibody that blocks the effects of the protein sclerostin that encourages the growth of osteoclasts that remove old bone cells.
Knee Pain: Treat with Lifestyle Changes
A review of 47 .studies on 22,037 patients with knee osteoarthritis treated for at least 12 months showed no clear difference in controlling long-term pain between medications and placebos. With the exception of immune suppressants that have lots of serious side effects, medications and health supplements do not prevent progressive damage to joints and are used only to help lessen pain.
Inactivity Linked to Arthritis
The majority of people with arthritis are inactive, overweight, diabetic or pre-diabetic. The CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that 32 percent of adults with arthritis have pre-diabetes or diabetes, 56.5 percent are physically inactive and 50.1 percent are obese. Anything that causes inflammation can damage joints, and inflammation is a more common cause of arthritis than wear-and-tear injuries.
Lifestyle Changes to Reduce Joint Pain
Eighty percent of North Americans have X-ray evidence of osteoarthritis by age 65, and 60 percent have significant joint pain. Researchers at Surrey University in England reviewed 68 studies on the effects of diet on osteoarthritis and found that osteoarthritis is associated with everything that increases inflammation, and that the joint pain can be reduced by everything associated with the control of inflammation.
Slim Evidence for Stem Cell Treatment of Arthritis
Hundreds of stem cell clinics in the United States are promoting stem cell treatments for knee osteoarthritis without solid evidence that they help to relieve pain or repair broken cartilage. Stem cells are primordial cells that can become any tissue such as bone, muscle, cartilage and so forth. Very promising research is being done now at several medical schools in which the DNA in stem cells is altered to make them become cartilage cells.
Inactivity Increases Risk for Knee Pain
Eighty percent of North Americans have X-ray evidence of osteoarthritis by age 65, and sixty percent have significant joint pain. More than 700,000 people in the United States have their knees replaced each year. It now looks like inflammation, lack of exercise and being overweight are the major causes of knee joint pain.
Osteoarthritis has Doubled in the Last Fifty Years
Eighty percent of North Americans have X-ray evidence of osteoarthritis by age 65, and sixty percent have significant joint pain. A recent study compared the size of knee cartilage in skeletons, and the researchers found that the incidence of knee osteoarthritis (loss of cartilage) has risen at a frightening rate over the last 50 years.
Running and Walking May Be Good for Your Back
People who run or walk regularly have healthier and stronger spinal discs than non-exercisers do (Scientific Reports 7, April 19, 2017). This is very reassuring because some doctors tell patients with back pain not to run because they think that the jarring of the foot striking the ground will damage discs and injure backs,.
Auto-Immune Diseases and Inflammation
Several recent articles suggest that inflammation associated with a faulty diet, lack of exercise, overweight and lack of vitamin D increases risk for autoimmune diseases. There is no strong evidence yet to show that any diet will cure auto-immune disease.
Osteoarthritis Linked to Inflammation
Eighty percent of North Americans have X-ray evidence of osteoarthritis by age 65, and sixty percent have significant joint pain. Osteoarthritis may be caused by inflammation, the same overactive immunity that causes heart attacks and auto-immune diseases.
Osteoporosis and Diet
The Women's Health Initiative showed that an inflammatory diet is associated with increased hip fracture rates in women ages 50 to 63 and an anti-inflammatory diet is associated with less bone density loss in this same group of postmenopausal women.
How Excess Weight Can Cause Arthritis
Osteoarthritis affects almost 30 million North Americans, making it the most common joint disease. It damages cartilage most often in the knees, hips, fingers and spine and is associated with aging, trauma, and obesity, but its primary cause now appears to be an overactive immunity that damages joints.
Knee Osteoarthritis: Exercise Therapy More Effective than Surgery
With aging, a person wears away the shock-absorbing cartilage in the knees, which increases risk for pain and swelling. Many studies present overwhelming evidence that surgery for torn knee cartilage (torn meniscus) does not reduce knee pain or swelling in the long run.
Osteoarthritis Probably Caused By Inflammation
Research from the Medical University of Vienna shows that most cases of osteoarthritis are caused by an overactive immunity, just like rheumatoid arthritis and reactive arthritis. Patients with osteoarthritis have raised tissue levels of galectins, carbohydrate-binding proteins that turn on a person's immunity to break down cartilage in joints in the same way that a person's immunity attacks germs when they invade your body.
Exercise for Osteoarthritis
Strengthening leg muscles helps to control pain in osteoarthritic knees. Isometric and range-of-motion strength programs help to control pain and increase range of motion in people who have osteoarthritis. The patients had less pain on moving their knees and were able to perform motor tasks faster.
Nonsteroidals Can Delay Healing
Doctors often prescribe aspirin and nonsteroidal medicines to people who suffer pain from surgery and injury, but they do not help you recover faster from muscle injuries (1,2,3) , broken bones, joint damage, surgery including joint replacement (12) or muscle soreness after hard exercise (4)/ and they can cause diarrhea, belly pain and bleeding. What you gain in pain control, you may lose in actually delaying healing
Back Pain from Osteoporosis
If you suffer from severe back pain and your doctor has not found a cause, ask him or her if you need a bone density test to determine if you have osteoporosis. All women and most men will suffer osteoporosis if they live long enough.
Manipulation for Low Back Pain
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that spinal manipulation is at least as effective in controlling low-back pain as the standard medical treatments of ultrasound, antiinflammatory drugs, anti-pain drugs, diathermy heat treatments, hot or cold packs, use of a corset or transcutaneous nerve stimulation.
