Re: arthritis... bummer!

In message <1fOdnSruLMlIeVnaRVnytAA@xxxxxxxxx>
"Paul Saunders" <pvs1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mark Manning wrote:

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions, please?

Try cutting out gluten.

You Are What You Eat: New Theories About Rheumatoid Arthritis
http://www.webmd.com/news/20000418/rheumatoid-arthritis-diet

Rheumatoid Arthritis and the Gluten Factor
http://www.glutenfreedietbook.com/articles/index.php?article=18

Recovery from Rheumatoid Arthritis
http://jhackett_ra.tripod.com/moreinfo.html

Paul

Firstly sorry to hear of your problems Mark but hopefully they won't
turn out to interfere too much with your activities in the short to
medium term. I'm afraid that in the longer term we are all subject to
the biological nature of our being and will get old and die at some
point if we don't die of trauma sooner. I know lots of people who have
injuries or suffer from arthritis who are in pain but try not to let it
stop them doing what they enjoy doing.

As to advice, Paul is pointing to "theories" about "Rheumatoid
Arthritis" which is accepted to have a major immunological component,
whereas your original post Mark indicated "osteoarthritis" which is
essentially thought to be mechanical damage, i.e. the joints are wearing
out faster than they can be repaired by the body.

As to dietary supplements etc my own view as a biologist and
immunologist is that generally the body is perfectly capable of
maintaining the right balance of tissues providing that you eat a
healthy balanced diet. Eating a variety of foods regularly i.e. not
similar foods every day, allows the body to select what it requires.
Most of the health supplements are factors that are already present in a
balanced diet (and that includes balanced vegetarian diets). There is
also the problem that overdosing the body on some supplements can itself
lead to problems, particularly where the body normally only expects to
encounter low levels of the substances naturally.

As to the claims made by individuals that they know that substance X
helped their disease, all I can say as a research professional in the
therapeutic field is that anecdotes are easy to recount and to find
credible, but they often fail to be reproduced at a population level in
controlled clinical trials. Thus I tend to remain a sceptic unless good
population level evidence is provided. Don't forget that even clever
professional people can be misled by their beliefs. The Noble Prize
winner Linus Pauling devoted much of his later career to a belief in the
wonderous health properties of high level Vitamin C, but a more general
scientific consensus based on the scientific data is that he was wrong.

The problem with biological systems is that they are continually
changing, repairing and renewing. Thus if you do nothing, or you do X,
or you do Y or Z, the chances are that over a period of time you will
observe a change. The difficulty is in showing a causal relationship
that is reproducible at a population level.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | reader in immunology, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: arthritis... bummer!
    ... In message, Paul Saunders writes ... You Are What You Eat: New Theories About Rheumatoid Arthritis ... Osteo and rheumatoid are different things. ...
    (uk.rec.walking)
  • Re: arthritis... bummer!
    ... Try cutting out gluten. ... You Are What You Eat: New Theories About Rheumatoid Arthritis ... Recovery from Rheumatoid Arthritis ...
    (uk.rec.walking)