Joint Resolution - role food can play in treating rheumatoid arthritis; includes related article on foods that combat arthritic pain

Vegetarian Times, May, 1999 by Laurel Kallenbach

Fend off the painful, degenerative effects of arthritis with the right food choices

When 28-year-old Jean Magnuson gave birth to her first child, she never dreamed that just a few months later she'd be celebrating Mother's Day at the Mayo Clinic. Yet that's exactly where the Sioux Falls, S.D., native found herself, undergoing endless medical tests in hope of finding a cure for her sudden and crippling illness: rheumatoid arthritis.

Within weeks of giving birth, Magnuson noticed that her knuckles had swollen to twice their normal size, her wrists were bulging with nodules, and the pain in her knees and feet was excruciating. The only help for her condition, she was told, was potent pharmaceuticals. Even though they offered just mild relief, Magnuson took them. After she had spent a year on gold injections and corticosteroids, her physician told her he believed she would have to take them indefinitely. Worse yet, the toxicity of the drugs meant it would be unsafe for her to conceive a child. The news was more than she could handle. Angry and tearful--and determined to be a mother again--she vowed to find a better way to fight her arthritis.

Magnuson stopped the injections and gradually weaned herself off the steroids. Drug-free, but not well, Magnuson began researching alternative treatments, ultimately seeking the care of a naturopath at the Chicago Holistic Center. There she learned that two basics--diet and exercise--were the path to controlling the disease. She also learned which foods caused inflammation and promptly eliminated them from her diet. Despite the pain, she did gentle yoga every morning. Within a month, she could walk across a room without a cane and slice fruit effortlessly. Today, seven years after starting her whole-foods diet and exercise regime, Magnuson is raising three children, has returned to school for a degree in elementary education and says she feels better than most people who've never had arthritis.

A WIDESPREAD ILLNESS

The progression of Magnuson's rheumatoid arthritis was extremely rapid, and yet her case is not unique. More than 2 million Americans have the disease and another 21 million suffer from osteoarthritis, according to the Arthritis Foundation. These two types are the most common among the more than 100 varieties of arthritis, which also include fibromyalgia, gout and lupus. The bad news is, the numbers appear to be on the rise, especially as the population ages and continues to eat the standard American diet, replete with saturated, inflammation-causing animal fats and lacking in nutrients.

Yet rheumatoid arthritis isn't just a disease of the elderly--it most commonly hits people between the ages of 20 and 40. Osteoarthritis is the loss of joint cartilage from wear and tear or injury. "Anyone who played a contact sport in high school or college probably will get arthritis by age 30," says Michael Loes, M.D., director of the Arizona Pain Institute in Phoenix and co-author of Arthritis: The Doctor's Cure (Keats, 1998).

The news about arthritis isn't all dismal, however. Nutritional research is turning up new information on whole foods, dietary supplements and herbal remedies every day. (See "Foods That Fight Arthritis Pain," p. 21.) "The body is a better healer than physicians will ever be," Loes says. The key is maintaining nutritional balance to treat and even prevent arthritis.

THE MYSTERY OF AUTOIMMUNITY

Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory autoimmune disease that affects the whole body but primarily attacks the joints. Doctors believe it occurs when the body's immune system turns against itself and starts to damage joint tissues. Why this happens is a mystery, but diet appears to be one of the best methods of treating it. Women in their 20s through 40s are three times more likely than men to develop rheumatoid arthritis, in which joints stiffen or swell with fluid. Secondary symptoms include fatigue, weakness and weight loss. Conventional drug treatments usually bring some relief of pain, but often produce serious side effects. Common drug therapies include nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen; corticosteroids; and cytotoxic agents that suppress the ,immune system. Among the possible side effects from these treatments are nausea, stomach irritation, bone loss, headaches, hypertension and increased risk of infection.

In contrast, a natural approach to rheumatoid arthritis addresses digestion and food allergies, two factors associated with the disease. "I've seen people get pain relief by identifying aggravating foods in their diet and eliminating them," says naturopath Lauri Aesoph, N.D., of Sioux Falls, S.D., and the author of How to Eat Away Arthritis (Prentice Hall, 1996).

Arthritis isn't caused simply by eating nutrient-poor junk foods. Actually, Aesoph explains, eating too many processed foods paves the way for food allergies, which may trigger the immune system to attack joint tissue. Also implicated is a condition called leaky gut syndrome, in which undigested molecules of food escape from a weakened intestinal lining into the blood and produce an autoimmune response. "I've seen the most profound changes in a person's health and pain relief from diet alone," says Aesoph, who also recommends free-radical-fighting antioxidants to patients trying to prevent or treat arthritis. Vitamins A, C and E and minerals zinc and selenium are important because arthritis' inflammation creates free radicals, which further damage body tissues. "The tough part is getting people to follow through with it."