Diet and RA, my perspective
The role of diet in RA is controversial primarily because of competing interests but also because there is a major flaw in most diet based healing techniques IMHO.
I believe that remission from RA can be achieved by eliminating inflammatory items affecting an individual from the diet. This is a different approach than following some healthy diet menu.
No matter how much healthy food you eat, you can still suffer from RA if there is something in your diet that does not suit you and it is different from one person to another.
A good indication of this problem is your RA pain comes and goes away. It is likely that some days you did not consume that item and other days you did. I found that whenever I ate peanuts or any wheat product such as bread, bagels, croissants, crackers etc. I had severe pain in all joints but mostly in the hips and knees. But these foods did affect my family members and any friends at all.
My suspicion was confirmed when I read a book in the local library written by a practicing rheumatologist claiming he has cured all his patients completely of RA by finding and eliminating their inflammatory foods. He used several diet changes to find those foods which took about 6 weeks or so.
There is an easier way I figured out to verify food is an issue.
So what I did is I ate only a single item (I picked mixed green salad with a simple dressing like olive oil and vinegar), for 3 days. This eliminated the possibility of having some problem food in my diet except the salad. My pain was much reduced next day and totally disappeared within 3 days. I felt very energetic and refreshed in spite of the low calories diet. Of course I would miss other foods if I ate only salads for the rest of my life. So I tested other foods, one by one and found many items safe and a few unsafe ones. I am not only pain free for the last 25 years but my general health became much better than prior to RA inception. My recovery was speedy perhaps because I never used any conventional drugs and used Tylenols etc. only occasionally. It might take others a few more days but that is only a guess.
So if anyone is not happy with the results of RA drugs, it makes sense to try this approach. It costs virtually nothing and it will likely provide permanent relief.
I believe the gut microflora has something to do with inflammatory foods. Without certain microbes in the gut some foods cannot be digested properly resulting in toxic byproducts. By experimenting with probiotics and prebiotics I was able to modify the gut microflora and now I can eat all foods. Mayo clinic reports a connection between RA and Gut microflora which they further investigating.
Hi
. Thanks for sharing what helped you. It certainly never hurts to try an elimination diet. Allergies trigger the immune system and can increase inflammation, making RA symptoms worse. Dietary changes don't help everyone, but your system is an easy way to determine whether they might. I hope you continue to remain pain-free. Best wishes! - Lori (Team Member) This is totally different;
You are correct that Dietary changes don't help everyone. They cannot because of the way they are practiced. I have seen the papers of so called scientific studies that are so flawed that they seemed to be designed to sabotage the concept of diet elimination.
One double blind study (see reference 4) used diets that had all the well known allergic/inflammatory food items including about 8 classified by the FDA as allergens requiring label warnings.
These included Soy products, wheat products, Oats peanuts, and other nuts.
I think half the RA sufferers would be cured if they just removed these products from their diets. So naturally the result was "no difference". This types of study results are spread like wild fire by unsuspecting experts and university professors and other elites.
I have also examined many books on arthritis cure through diet elimination. I found 2 that work based on user feedback in addition to my personal experience. Both are however difficult or expensive to practice. The first required a lengthy trial and error procedure to find the allergens. The second required expensive blood tests. They are worth the time and cost. But I improvised a fast and cost free method that accomplishes the same task and has no side effects. Of course, even a salad could be toxic to some rare person and he should immediately abandon it and try something else like baked sweet potato that has no reported allergic reaction. The only problem I foresee using the protocol is strict compliance. It is very tempting during the test to grab a cookie or cracker and violate the rule. It is also very difficult in a social environment like parties and restaurant trips though most restaurants do serve salads.
There is convincing evidence though obscured, that diet elimination that removes inflammatory foods works for virtually every one. Most of the diet elimination studies are actually diet substitution and these will always have mixed results because no food can cure rheumatism, but some foods trigger rheumatism.
This business of studies and medical opinions are mired in a hodgepodge of corruption, frauds, bribery and other ethical issues. Reference 1 and 2. If big money is involved, it is impossible to avoid these. Below are some published references. But any literate person can see the frauds by examining the drug trial data and the drug disclosure pamphlet that accompanies the drug.
I have lots of research documents that I would like to share. But I think the best way I can share all is a link to my Google Drive folder. I wonder if the community guideline can accept that.
I also have information on proven cures for many diseases declared incurable by the powers that are and hidden by the smoke screen "It is an autoimmune disease for which there is no cure" I can upload this on my Google Drive and insert an access link here.
References:
1. Pharmaceutical Frauds. Wikipedia.
2 The ethical challenges in rheumatology - PMC
3..Methotrexate MedlinePlus Drug Information
4. Anti-inflammatory Diet In Rheumatoid Arthritis (ADIRA)—
a randomized, controlled crossover trial indicating
effects on disease activityVery interesting. What were the unsafe foods in your case? Thanks for all the info!
In my case, all the wheat products containing wheat, breads, croissants, crackers made in US were problems but not pizza for some strange reason. Also peanuts and almonds and most packaged items like breakfast cereals, oats, cornflakes and others. Interestingly, I could eat wheat products like croissants in plenty when I visited Taiwan on customer support trips. So it could be some additives they put in wheat flour in the US and not the gluten that is said to be problem for many. I suspect pizza dough is made from wheat flour without those additives. I noticed black pepper caused problems but I rarely used black pepper so it may be circumstantial. With wheat products and peanuts, I experimented dozens of time and they always caused flares without fail. I was totally pain free for about 25 years as long as I strictly avoided the inflammatory items. When I retired, I did some heavy extensive research on the gut microbiome and I experimented with some techniques to improve the gut microbiome. Suddenly something worked and got rid of all my sensitivities to inflammatory foods. I can now eat all those items, wheat products, peanuts and all others and for the last 12 months or so, I have not found a single item that causes RA flair. I noticed that whenever I received antibiotic treatment for unrelated issues, it also eliminated food sensitivities for about a month. This indicated to me that the antibiotics like Amoxicillin, changes the gut microbiome. To make the effect permanent, I tried using probiotics and prebiotics and I suspect they were the main things that brought about the results, but I also started tacking vitamin D and Vitamin B12 supplements at the same time because of blood tests indicating very low levels.
My research on 50 year old history of RA treatments using diet elimination shows that many people will not benefit from diet elimination unless they fast for a day or two and thoroughly cleanse the colon with laxatives or enemas before starting the diet elimination process. This makes sense because if the colon is heavily infested with bad microbes, there is no space available for good microbes. Dr. Giraud Campbell's book recommends a one day fasting and colon cleansing and then consume a diet of fresh raw vegetables for a weak. He claims 100% success in ridding RA pain in a week but then you have to follow his dietary recommendations.
The book is very credible. It was published over 50 years ago and is still sold worldwide by more than 32 book dealers and I have not seen any refutation of his claims. The only limitations of the technique is that it may be not be effective for people heavily treated with toxic pharma drugs like prednisone etc. you cannot use any pharma drugs during the treatment. Most pharma drugs suppress your immune system making you vulnerable to infection instead of strengthening your immune system. They warn the patients with the drug literature but hardly anyone reads it. That is tragic!!I can understand why doctors do not recommend any diet. THere is no known diet to my knowledge that can fix RA and everyone has different triggers. It is the elimination of the trigger items that seems to work. Trial and error to find the triggers is not practical, can be confusing and requires too much patience. If there are multiple triggers, eliminating some will not work and would be falsely considered not the trigger. I found for a quick and practical way to find all triggers. I started with mixed green salad only. It is rarely a trigger for anyone. Then I tested one more item at a time, adding to the menu and classified it trigger or non trigger depending on flares or no flares during the following 3 days. It takes about 3 days to recover after eliminating the offending item. But it could be bit fewer or more days. In my case I was totally pain free in 3 days until I tested a trigger. But after finding all the triggers, I was pain free for 25 years and going.
I can understand why doctors will not tell patients about this. This is self treatment that does not require their services and detrimental to their livelihood. One other problem is patent compliance. It is too tempting to grab a cookie every now and then they say diet elimination does not work.Can you post your google drive. I've found looking at other arthritis stories as well as treatment for illnesses directly related to gut bacteria usefu.
