Natural Arthritis Treatments: The Role Of A Proper Diet

Arthritis involves joint pain, so treatment has to extend to helping the joints recover and the body to experience less pain. Natural treatments for arthritis are common, and they include changing one’s diet, acupuncture, massages and physical therapy, and magnetic bracelets.

If you are suffering from arthritis, your doctor may recommend not only a battery of therapeutic methods to get you back on your feet, but quite a number of medications that can be daunting to not only take, but to purchase as well. You might have considered natural arthritis treatments to help alleviate the pain brought about by your arthritis, and you might have considered everything from changes in your diet to New Age medicine.

But how efficient and safe are such treatments? Should you take the risk of changing your diet entirely because of the so-called history of safe use of such medications and so-called natural arthritis treatments? What exactly constitutes a natural treatment?

How Does Changing One’s Diet Help Turn Back the Clock on One’s Joints?

Arthritis is a general term that covers various diseases that attack the body’s joints, causing pains that can get in the way of what were once routine movements. One particular type of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, is an autoimmune disease; that is, the body’s own immune system goes into overdrive, attacking the body’s joints so that the cushions in between joints waste away slowly and painfully. Another type of arthritis, gouty arthritis, arises because of the buildup of uric acid in the joints.

Arthritis has long been known and documented, and there are several ways to change one’s diet in order to accommodate the needs of arthritic patients. For instance, because gouty arthritis patients have excess uric acid, they need to have a low protein diet and keep away from certain foods that can exacerbate their condition. This can include staying away from certain seafood and legumes, lowering alcohol intake, and stopping any poor lifestyle habit that taxes on the abilities of the liver and kidney to cleanse the body.

Changing the diet has long been a natural way to get rid of the pain of arthritis. Old treatments included eating a wide variety of apples, sprinkling food with fresh nutmeg, staying on a diet of rhubarb, increasing one’s intake honey, or even consuming gold salts! Small wonder it is, then, that some bottles of Russian vodka contain metal shavings, on the pretext that they are known to serve as good forms of medication.

In the past, fasting was considered a way to rid the body of toxins, and thus to make arthritis go away. However, such a method can also deprive the body of nutrients and make it more susceptible to infections, so that the pain brought about by arthritis can be even more severe. Also, some therapists recommend a battery of vitamins to ease the pain of arthritis: although such a method can be good for the immune system, not all vitamins can be taken in large amounts. Moreover, not all vitamins can be taken along with arthritis medication; vitamins are supplements, not cures...