Avoid or improve osteoarthritis & new discovery....
Today's Post: Thursday, 1-5-2012
Osteoarthritis is obnoxious and painful and can be limiting -- and expensive to fix in the case of hip replacement.
But new discoveries have found that if you start early enough in life, you may be able to avoid it or mostly avoid it.
And, if you already have it, you can stop it from getting worse, make it less painful and limiting, and may even be able to partially reverse it!
1. The really big new discovery is that while it’s been traditional to think that arthritis causes inflammation that’s the less important thing to know. It does.
BUT the new discovery is that inflammation CAUSES osteoarthritis!
The new research found that high chronic inflammation even more than overuse triggers the damage that gradually removes the natural cushion and smoothness of your joints.
So, if you turn off high chronic inflammation, you turn off the major cause of osteoarthritis!
So if you start or succeed in turning off high chronic inflammation before you get osteoarthritis, you won’t get it or will get very little.
If you already have osteoarthritis and work at and succeed in turning off high chronic inflammation, it will mostly stop getting worse, it will stop hurting you as much, and it may even get better!
(Note: If you have and turn off succeed in turning off high chronic inflammation, you also tend to avoid heart disease, mental decline, & some cancers! You will age more slowly or be less harmed by the aging process also.
For example, a high reading on the HSCRP test of C Reactive Protein, an indicator of high inflammation, is a significant risk factor for future heart attacks and other heart disease.)
2. We now know how to turn off or avoid high chronic inflammation without using drugs or risking their side effects!
Aspirin cuts inflammation. But it can overdo blood thinning and cause stomach bleeding.
NSAIDs such as Advil and Motrin etc lower inflammation but new research suggests they prevent blood thinning when it’s needed and may increase the risk of heart disease.
Statin drugs ability to lower inflammation may be more important in preventing heart disease than their ability to lower LDL cholesterol.
But only some people with a certain heredity and with dangerously advanced heart disease or extremely high risk factors should be on them.
(We’ve posted on that before. So we won’t go over it here. The good news is that for lowering chronic inflammation and a high HSCRP level the new information in this post can do the job. And, it also has many other health benefits instead of side effects.)
So what new information is there on lowering chronic inflammation or avoiding it in the first place?
a) People who don’t know how to avoid it today get 16 to 20 times too much omega 6 oils and close to no omega 3 oils.
But more than a small amount of omega 6 oils triggers high chronic inflammation. Meanwhile the omega 3 oils most people aren’t yet getting lower inflammation.
We explain how to change that below. Each part of that set of actions has other health benefits too!
b) Gum disease is almost totally preventable mostly by brushing and flossing right. But most people who don’t do both well get gum disease.
Oops! The bacteria that go with gum disease boost the heck out of your level of chronic inflammation. And this goes on until the gum disease is all gone.
But you don’t have to go there or stay there!
We covered a bit of that in our last post and will cover more below.
Fixing both these causes of high chronic inflammation is quite doable.
But what if you already have osteoarthritis or your efforts to turn off inflammation are good but not great?
Wouldn’t it be useful if there were other ways to turn off or turn down high chronic inflammation too?
c) There are two spices, both currently available as supplements that do just that.
In addition they provide some of the most important health benefits known in many other areas and have very few side effects.
There are also several spices and an herbal supplement that have a component in them that also lowers inflammation. It may also help repair joint damage.
And it is a safe and natural anabolic that helps your growth hormones prevent damage and heals damage and keeps your muscles strong -- although adding strength training enhances these effects.
We cover these last in this post.
a) People who don’t know how to avoid it today get 16 to 20 times too much omega 6 oils and close to no omega 3 oils.
How do you reverse that or avoid going there?
Simply put, eat right and take omega 3 supplements.
But our understanding of how to eat right to do this is new.
Most people know that eating right means eating more real food and no longer eating junk and semifoods.
But precisely how is this done to lower your omega 6 intake and increase your omega 3 intake. Why are those steps important and effective?
Most foods today, unfortunately, are or are made out of cheap oils – all high in omega 6. Many of those oils are also hydrogenated which makes them even more pro inflammatory and causes other health problems.
Or they are made out of refined grains which are high in omega 6.
Or they are protein foods but from animals purposely overfed grain instead of allowed to eat their natural diets.
That makes the fat and oils in them unnaturally and dramatically high in omega 6 by close to 20 to one too much! And it close to eliminates the omega 3 oils that would otherwise be in those foods. This is particularly true of cattle raised in factory farms and in farmed fish.
The set of things to do to avoid this have many other health benefits from preventing heart disease, preventing mental decline, preventing or improving high blood pressure, and helping to avoid excess body fat or get rid of it!
In our last post on Tuesday, 1-3-2011 we covered how to almost completely avoid trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils. Use that information since those are unusually harmful to your health AND all made with the cheapest possible high omega 6 oils!
If you use oil to the extent you can, only use real extra virgin olive oil. The much cheaper soy, corn, safflower, and canola oils are all high in omega 6. They all are grown on factory farms and in the United States most are also genetically modified but not so identified on their labels. Don’t buy them at all and minimize or eliminate foods that contain them.
(Canola oil is only high in omega 6 instead of very high and does have the plant based omega 3 oil. But if you are able to do so, eating raw walnuts for that plant based omega 3 oil, getting omega 3 oils from animal sources, and using extra virgin olive oil instead are each much better for you.)
(Real mayonnaise is no longer sold in any of the stores I’ve shopped at. If you want the real thing that contains only olive oil, currently you have to make it yourself. The others all contain these cheap oils instead. Some premade salad dressings only have olive oil. But most use soy oil today. Eat as little of these as you can manage! Use extra virgin olive oil instead whenever you can.)
What about the high omega 6 content in meats and other protein foods that are fed grain instead of their natural diets?
That too is a huge problem for most people.
But there are 3 solutions:
Get protein from animals fed their natural diets. Wild caught fish and meat from 100 % grass fed animals instead of grain fed animals and farmed fish are example. It costs more so you have to eat a bit less. But it saves your health and future medical bills!
Get safer oils from nuts and avocados and extra virgin olive oils and protein from nuts and beans and lentils.
Get a bit of protein from less refined oatmeal and some 100 % whole grain foods but not too much.
Eat such whole grains, beans and lentils, and nonstarchy vegetables instead of refined grain foods.
If you do eat foods from animals fed grain, minimize the amount and make it all as fat reduced and lean as you can.
Yes the fats and oils from grain fed animals are high in saturated fat – much more than from naturally fed animals. But minimizing that fat is much more important for your health because of the reduction in omega 6 oils!
Eat chicken, usually, remove the skin before cooking, and drain it after cooking to remove even more oils.
Only buy the leanest cuts of meat, trim any visible fat, use a mechanical tenderizer such as the one from Butchers Kitchen, and add back some extra virgin olive oil in recipes that would suffer from too little oil.
Mostly avoid processed meats. They tend to be the fattier cuts and use harmful to you preservatives we just found out.
Mostly use 2% lowfat dairy products. The regular has twice the fat. And the nonfat and 1% tend to use dried milk which boosts inflammation.
Kerry Gold Irish cheese is from grass fed cows. And, there is a German butter from grass fed cows. Use those when you can get them instead of from grain fed sources.
Eat eggs from the most naturally raised chickens you can. Their ratio of quality protein to bad fats is actually favorable even if from grain fed because egg protein is so complete and the yolks don’t have that much fat.
If you can get eggs from pasture fed chickens fed in unpolluted locations do so. But that’s still rare unless you live near such a farm.
If you do the best you can at each of these things, you can still eat plenty of protein and good tasting food and slash your intake of omega 6 oils.
Second, ensure that you get daily and weekly infusions of omega 3 oils.
In my view the best source of the plant version of omega 3 is walnuts.
Unless you are allergic and cannot eat them, they have that omega 3. They have some monosaturated oils too. Walnuts have been tested to have heart health benefits from their minerals and other phytonutrients.
They do have some omega 6 oils. But because they also have fiber and protein and these other oils, if they are one of your few sources of omega 6 your intake will be small enough to not be a problem. (Also, you do need some omega 6 oils. So if you virtually eliminate all your other sources, you can get you minimum intake needed for good health from walnuts.
People who eat raw walnuts, or almonds, or pecans eat a high fat food. But they rarely gain weight – virtually never if they only eat an ounce or two a day.
How can that be?
The reason is that nuts contain each of the six things that turn off appetite. They have fats and oils. They have fiber. They have protein. They taste good. And, they are crunchy enough you can tell you’ve eaten. And it takes a few minutes to eat them. So people who eat nuts lower their appetite enough, they eat that many calories less of other foods.
Small wild caught fish from unpolluted waters may be the best source of omega 3 oils from food. They contain less pollution than larger fish that eat lots of fish their size. And, many of them such as sardines are high in DHA which is unusually brain protective and enhancing. Some people are allergic to canned fish. And some canned fish can be a bit too smelly. Though I have heard that soaking them for a half an hour in milk before eating or heating up can cut that way down.
Wild caught salmon are also a good source of omega 3 oils. Fewer people are allergic to them. And even canned salmon tends to not be too smelly to eat immediately. Alaskan canned salmon is all wild caught and relatively inexpensive. (Caution, if salmon in a store or a restaurant is not labeled as wild caught it is virtually certain to be farmed salmon. Farmed fish is often fed grain and has less omega 3 oils. Worse, it is very high in pollutants. Avoid it totally or only it once a year or less.)
What if you don’t want to eat fish or you only eat fish or seafood with omega 3 oils once or twice or three times a week? What do you do instead or every day to ensure you have omega 3 oils each day?
Purified fish oil supplements from Nordic Naturals provide exactly that. They start with small wild caught fish low in pollutants and then purify that oil. I take two a day of their omega 3 supplement. I also take a separate DHA supplement daily as it is the most brain protective one.
Omega 3 oils help protect you in other ways besides lowering inflammation too. They lower your triglycerides. They slightly lower your bloods tendency to clot. And for some people they help lower high blood pressure a bit. Each of those effects is heart protective. And the reduce inflammation is heart protective too.
And, there’s more. Omega three oils in general and DHA in particular not only help your brain work better and improve your mood and make you less irritable and protect you from depression, a recent study found they help you prevent your brain from shrinking as you get older. Until that study came out, we thought that only regular exercise did that.
So eat a DASH diet with extra vegetables and some garlic and some extra virgin olive oil and eat fish or take omega 3 supplements. Consider adding some red wine in moderation.
Or eat a Mediterranean diet with a bit less pasta and more vegetables and eat fish or take omega 3 supplements.
These two diets with these additions overlap a bit. And they are low in omega 6 oils.
And, since they are decent on protein and high in nonstarchy vegetables and have very few fattening foods, many people who eat them experience almost effortless fat loss. It’s common for people who begin eating the DASH diet to lose 20 or 25 pounds if they have been eating more fattening foods and drinking regular or diet soft drinks before.
b) Gum disease is almost totally preventable mostly by brushing and flossing right. But most people who don’t do both well get gum disease.
Oops! The bacteria that go with gum disease boost the heck out of your level of chronic inflammation. And this goes on until the gum disease is all gone.
But you don’t have to go there or stay there!
People who, at least once a day every day -- floss their teeth and then brush them with special techniques and attention to brushing their gums with a soft bristled brush, get dozens of health benefits.
They get the obvious ones. They are less likely to have really bad breath. They are far less likely to get gum disease. And they are far more likely to keep their teeth. Plus they don’t have to pay for expensive gum disease treatments or pulling loose teeth or false teeth. And, their future appearance and breath will be far better. They’ll look younger and less poor than they otherwise would.
But they also get several massive health benefits besides those! Because of the damage from the bacteria in gum disease and the chronic inflammation in your system all the time, gum disease makes death, heart attacks, strokes, and Alzheimer’s disease all more likely. In addition, that inflammation also may help cause cancers and DOES help cause osteoarthritis. Really! Ouch!
There’s a special technique to flossing and brushing your teeth that makes it most effective.
You can schedule a teeth cleaning or check up at your Dentist’s office and ask for a lesson or two on how to brush and floss your teeth while you are there. (That’s how I learned to do both correctly. I got lucky and they volunteered to teach me.)
Here’s my short version.
They found that flossing first and then brushing was most effective.
When you floss don’t just get the floss between your teeth and remove it. After you have it between your teeth make a kind of x motion to clean down both side and into your gumline just a bit.
It only takes about one minute to do this.
(The main idea of both flossing and brushing correctly is to clean out the tiny food particles that otherwise get trapped just underneath your gumline. That’s what the bacteria get into to cause all the problems. So cleaning it out with flossing and brushing each day is the best defense.)
Then after you put a bit of toothpaste on your brush, brush the flat part of your back teeth on each side and top and bottom. That helps prevent cavities there particularly if you use a fluoride toothpaste.
All the rest of the brushing is for your gums although your teeth get brushed in the process. Brush the gumline inside and out on both top and bottom. AND, angle your brush at a 45 degree angle so it digs into your gumline just a bit. That’s why to use a soft tooth brush and be a bit gentle in your brushing. Then brushy your gumline inside and out and top and bottom a second time. Then on the third pass, brush your gums directly just above the gumline also inside and out and top and bottom.
If you do each of these three steps in 20 or 30 seconds, all your brushing takes less than two minutes.
So both flossing and brushing together takes about 3 minutes or just a bit more.
If you don’t have a soft toothbrush or a new soft one, buy a soft bristled toothbrush sometime this week. (Brushing your teeth at the gumline and brushing your gums directly is critically important to do. But medium and hard bristled tooth brushes damage your gums if you brush this way.)
If you don’t have floss, buy two containers of floss sometime this week. (That way when you run out of the first one, you begin using the second one which you then replace the next time you go to the store.)
Then make a very strong special effort to floss and then brush once every day. First thing after breakfast tends to work best. And do that for 3 weeks. After that, you are in the habit of doing it. Just resume if you notice you begin skipping. Pick a start date soon and begin then!
(What if you get super rushed some mornings? Even if you are so rushed you skip breakfast or a shower, always do at least a fast brushing. Then floss later that day after dinner. That way even when being that rushed, you both brush and floss once that day. Then always do both right after breakfast on the days you aren’t so rushed.
As a last resort, up to once a week, skip flossing. But make a strong effort to never skip two days in a row. If you do, it puts you at risk and you can tell the difference when you restart.)
Brushing and flossing this way every day is critical to your health. Virtually everyone can afford it.
And, even the best dentists can’t make up for all the damage if you don’t do it.
Not many people, even some dentists, don’t yet know that flossing and brushing can help prevent or improve osteoarthritis too.
But you are now one of them!
It also helps to get a teeth cleaning every 6 months at the dentist to remove the little bit of plaque your brushing and flossing miss.
That’s very important because this little bit of plaque hardens and acts like sandpaper to your gums. That also increases inflammation and can cause gum disease.
So if you have dental insurance or can afford to do this twice a year, it’s well worth it.
But what if you already have osteoarthritis or your efforts to turn off inflammation are good but not great?
Wouldn’t it be useful if there were other ways to turn off or turn down high chronic inflammation too?
c) There are two spices, both currently available as supplements that do just that.
In addition they provide some of the most important health benefits known in many other areas and have very few side effects.
There are also several spices and an herbal supplement that have a component in them that also lowers inflammation. It may also help repair joint damage.
And it is a safe and natural anabolic that helps your growth hormones prevent damage and heals damage and keeps your muscles strong -- although adding strength training enhances these effects.
The first two spices are turmeric and ginger. They are biologically related and have some overlapping effects.
Turmeric or the curcumin in it has an intense yellow color and a slightly harsh taste. Almost all curries have it as a key ingredient.
If you eat turmeric as a spice or eat curried food that contains it or take curcumin or turmeric supplements AND eat some black pepper at the same time and do this from several times a day to once a day you get some incredibly powerful health benefits!
You get enough inflammation reduction to turn down arthritis pain about as well as aspirin or NSAIDs but with other health benefits instead of side effects.
This daily inflammation reduction also helps prevent osteoarthritis. And, it helps prevent heart disease and many cancers.
But it’s first found health benefit is that it prevents and may even help reverse early cases of Alzheimer’s disease. It turns down tau protein which is now thought to create the initial damage. It lowers beta amyloid that tends to build up and worsen the damage. It even helps remove some beta amyloid over time.
But why the black pepper at the same time? Here are two reasons. One researcher found that turmeric was 200 times more absorbed and used when taken with black pepper! That’s a huge difference. The other was that in the research that found turmeric lowered tau protein now thought to be the initial trigger for Alzheimer’s disease, it did so when given with black pepper!
Turmeric and curcumin also help lower LDL cholesterol by up to 20 points when you get them that regularly.
Between all their effects they are also one of the best ways to prevent heart disease.
Ginger works better as a spice in different foods including sweet foods. It’s a bit hotter but far less harsh in its taste than turmeric.
Ginger also does a good job lowering inflammation. And well used as a spice it can really help foods taste good.
Ginger too lowers inflammation and LDL cholesterol and has other heart protective effects. One of those, it’s blood thinning effect, can be problematic in people taking blood thinning drugs however.
Lastly, ginger increases your resistance to nausea and air and sea sickness enough to be quite valuable for that use.
There are also several spices and an herbal supplement that have a component in them that also lowers inflammation. It may also help repair joint damage.
And it is a safe and natural anabolic that helps your growth hormones prevent damage and heals damage and keeps your muscles strong -- although adding strength training enhances these effects.
The ingredient is ursolic acid. It’s in many kinds of greens and the spices based on them. In addition to lowering inflammation once researcher found it acts as a safe and natural anabolic helping to preserve muscle and other lean body weight as people get older. It also may make your immune system enough more effective to speed your recovery from colds and the flu. That effect is substantial enough that as a drug, ursolic acid has anticancer effects.
So what’s it in?
It’s in most of the plant based savory spices, Oregano, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, and Basil. And a kind of basil called Holy Basil has enough you can get holy basil as a supplement. Oddly, it’s also high in apple peel. So another way to get it is to eat organic, unwaxed whole apples.
Currently you can also get ursolic acid as a supplement directly. But we know that getting ursolic acid as a spice or food is effective. It likely works as a direct supplement too. But these spices may well have complementary phytonutrients that make it work better.
Of course if you get osteoarthritis, there are also supplements such as glucosamine and chondroitin and hyaluronic acid and shea oil that each may help.
But eating right in this way; preventing gum disease; and taking these directly antiinflammatory supplements and spices are the 3 best ways to prevent and improve osteoarthritis.
Today's Post: Thursday, 1-5-2012
Osteoarthritis is obnoxious and painful and can be limiting -- and expensive to fix in the case of hip replacement.
But new discoveries have found that if you start early enough in life, you may be able to avoid it or mostly avoid it.
And, if you already have it, you can stop it from getting worse, make it less painful and limiting, and may even be able to partially reverse it!
1. The really big new discovery is that while it’s been traditional to think that arthritis causes inflammation that’s the less important thing to know. It does.
BUT the new discovery is that inflammation CAUSES osteoarthritis!
The new research found that high chronic inflammation even more than overuse triggers the damage that gradually removes the natural cushion and smoothness of your joints.
So, if you turn off high chronic inflammation, you turn off the major cause of osteoarthritis!
So if you start or succeed in turning off high chronic inflammation before you get osteoarthritis, you won’t get it or will get very little.
If you already have osteoarthritis and work at and succeed in turning off high chronic inflammation, it will mostly stop getting worse, it will stop hurting you as much, and it may even get better!
(Note: If you have and turn off succeed in turning off high chronic inflammation, you also tend to avoid heart disease, mental decline, & some cancers! You will age more slowly or be less harmed by the aging process also.
For example, a high reading on the HSCRP test of C Reactive Protein, an indicator of high inflammation, is a significant risk factor for future heart attacks and other heart disease.)
2. We now know how to turn off or avoid high chronic inflammation without using drugs or risking their side effects!
Aspirin cuts inflammation. But it can overdo blood thinning and cause stomach bleeding.
NSAIDs such as Advil and Motrin etc lower inflammation but new research suggests they prevent blood thinning when it’s needed and may increase the risk of heart disease.
Statin drugs ability to lower inflammation may be more important in preventing heart disease than their ability to lower LDL cholesterol.
But only some people with a certain heredity and with dangerously advanced heart disease or extremely high risk factors should be on them.
(We’ve posted on that before. So we won’t go over it here. The good news is that for lowering chronic inflammation and a high HSCRP level the new information in this post can do the job. And, it also has many other health benefits instead of side effects.)
So what new information is there on lowering chronic inflammation or avoiding it in the first place?
a) People who don’t know how to avoid it today get 16 to 20 times too much omega 6 oils and close to no omega 3 oils.
But more than a small amount of omega 6 oils triggers high chronic inflammation. Meanwhile the omega 3 oils most people aren’t yet getting lower inflammation.
We explain how to change that below. Each part of that set of actions has other health benefits too!
b) Gum disease is almost totally preventable mostly by brushing and flossing right. But most people who don’t do both well get gum disease.
Oops! The bacteria that go with gum disease boost the heck out of your level of chronic inflammation. And this goes on until the gum disease is all gone.
But you don’t have to go there or stay there!
We covered a bit of that in our last post and will cover more below.
Fixing both these causes of high chronic inflammation is quite doable.
But what if you already have osteoarthritis or your efforts to turn off inflammation are good but not great?
Wouldn’t it be useful if there were other ways to turn off or turn down high chronic inflammation too?
c) There are two spices, both currently available as supplements that do just that.
In addition they provide some of the most important health benefits known in many other areas and have very few side effects.
There are also several spices and an herbal supplement that have a component in them that also lowers inflammation. It may also help repair joint damage.
And it is a safe and natural anabolic that helps your growth hormones prevent damage and heals damage and keeps your muscles strong -- although adding strength training enhances these effects.
We cover these last in this post.
a) People who don’t know how to avoid it today get 16 to 20 times too much omega 6 oils and close to no omega 3 oils.
How do you reverse that or avoid going there?
Simply put, eat right and take omega 3 supplements.
But our understanding of how to eat right to do this is new.
Most people know that eating right means eating more real food and no longer eating junk and semifoods.
But precisely how is this done to lower your omega 6 intake and increase your omega 3 intake. Why are those steps important and effective?
Most foods today, unfortunately, are or are made out of cheap oils – all high in omega 6. Many of those oils are also hydrogenated which makes them even more pro inflammatory and causes other health problems.
Or they are made out of refined grains which are high in omega 6.
Or they are protein foods but from animals purposely overfed grain instead of allowed to eat their natural diets.
That makes the fat and oils in them unnaturally and dramatically high in omega 6 by close to 20 to one too much! And it close to eliminates the omega 3 oils that would otherwise be in those foods. This is particularly true of cattle raised in factory farms and in farmed fish.
The set of things to do to avoid this have many other health benefits from preventing heart disease, preventing mental decline, preventing or improving high blood pressure, and helping to avoid excess body fat or get rid of it!
In our last post on Tuesday, 1-3-2011 we covered how to almost completely avoid trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils. Use that information since those are unusually harmful to your health AND all made with the cheapest possible high omega 6 oils!
If you use oil to the extent you can, only use real extra virgin olive oil. The much cheaper soy, corn, safflower, and canola oils are all high in omega 6. They all are grown on factory farms and in the United States most are also genetically modified but not so identified on their labels. Don’t buy them at all and minimize or eliminate foods that contain them.
(Canola oil is only high in omega 6 instead of very high and does have the plant based omega 3 oil. But if you are able to do so, eating raw walnuts for that plant based omega 3 oil, getting omega 3 oils from animal sources, and using extra virgin olive oil instead are each much better for you.)
(Real mayonnaise is no longer sold in any of the stores I’ve shopped at. If you want the real thing that contains only olive oil, currently you have to make it yourself. The others all contain these cheap oils instead. Some premade salad dressings only have olive oil. But most use soy oil today. Eat as little of these as you can manage! Use extra virgin olive oil instead whenever you can.)
What about the high omega 6 content in meats and other protein foods that are fed grain instead of their natural diets?
That too is a huge problem for most people.
But there are 3 solutions:
Get protein from animals fed their natural diets. Wild caught fish and meat from 100 % grass fed animals instead of grain fed animals and farmed fish are example. It costs more so you have to eat a bit less. But it saves your health and future medical bills!
Get safer oils from nuts and avocados and extra virgin olive oils and protein from nuts and beans and lentils.
Get a bit of protein from less refined oatmeal and some 100 % whole grain foods but not too much.
Eat such whole grains, beans and lentils, and nonstarchy vegetables instead of refined grain foods.
If you do eat foods from animals fed grain, minimize the amount and make it all as fat reduced and lean as you can.
Yes the fats and oils from grain fed animals are high in saturated fat – much more than from naturally fed animals. But minimizing that fat is much more important for your health because of the reduction in omega 6 oils!
Eat chicken, usually, remove the skin before cooking, and drain it after cooking to remove even more oils.
Only buy the leanest cuts of meat, trim any visible fat, use a mechanical tenderizer such as the one from Butchers Kitchen, and add back some extra virgin olive oil in recipes that would suffer from too little oil.
Mostly avoid processed meats. They tend to be the fattier cuts and use harmful to you preservatives we just found out.
Mostly use 2% lowfat dairy products. The regular has twice the fat. And the nonfat and 1% tend to use dried milk which boosts inflammation.
Kerry Gold Irish cheese is from grass fed cows. And, there is a German butter from grass fed cows. Use those when you can get them instead of from grain fed sources.
Eat eggs from the most naturally raised chickens you can. Their ratio of quality protein to bad fats is actually favorable even if from grain fed because egg protein is so complete and the yolks don’t have that much fat.
If you can get eggs from pasture fed chickens fed in unpolluted locations do so. But that’s still rare unless you live near such a farm.
If you do the best you can at each of these things, you can still eat plenty of protein and good tasting food and slash your intake of omega 6 oils.
Second, ensure that you get daily and weekly infusions of omega 3 oils.
In my view the best source of the plant version of omega 3 is walnuts.
Unless you are allergic and cannot eat them, they have that omega 3. They have some monosaturated oils too. Walnuts have been tested to have heart health benefits from their minerals and other phytonutrients.
They do have some omega 6 oils. But because they also have fiber and protein and these other oils, if they are one of your few sources of omega 6 your intake will be small enough to not be a problem. (Also, you do need some omega 6 oils. So if you virtually eliminate all your other sources, you can get you minimum intake needed for good health from walnuts.
People who eat raw walnuts, or almonds, or pecans eat a high fat food. But they rarely gain weight – virtually never if they only eat an ounce or two a day.
How can that be?
The reason is that nuts contain each of the six things that turn off appetite. They have fats and oils. They have fiber. They have protein. They taste good. And, they are crunchy enough you can tell you’ve eaten. And it takes a few minutes to eat them. So people who eat nuts lower their appetite enough, they eat that many calories less of other foods.
Small wild caught fish from unpolluted waters may be the best source of omega 3 oils from food. They contain less pollution than larger fish that eat lots of fish their size. And, many of them such as sardines are high in DHA which is unusually brain protective and enhancing. Some people are allergic to canned fish. And some canned fish can be a bit too smelly. Though I have heard that soaking them for a half an hour in milk before eating or heating up can cut that way down.
Wild caught salmon are also a good source of omega 3 oils. Fewer people are allergic to them. And even canned salmon tends to not be too smelly to eat immediately. Alaskan canned salmon is all wild caught and relatively inexpensive. (Caution, if salmon in a store or a restaurant is not labeled as wild caught it is virtually certain to be farmed salmon. Farmed fish is often fed grain and has less omega 3 oils. Worse, it is very high in pollutants. Avoid it totally or only it once a year or less.)
What if you don’t want to eat fish or you only eat fish or seafood with omega 3 oils once or twice or three times a week? What do you do instead or every day to ensure you have omega 3 oils each day?
Purified fish oil supplements from Nordic Naturals provide exactly that. They start with small wild caught fish low in pollutants and then purify that oil. I take two a day of their omega 3 supplement. I also take a separate DHA supplement daily as it is the most brain protective one.
Omega 3 oils help protect you in other ways besides lowering inflammation too. They lower your triglycerides. They slightly lower your bloods tendency to clot. And for some people they help lower high blood pressure a bit. Each of those effects is heart protective. And the reduce inflammation is heart protective too.
And, there’s more. Omega three oils in general and DHA in particular not only help your brain work better and improve your mood and make you less irritable and protect you from depression, a recent study found they help you prevent your brain from shrinking as you get older. Until that study came out, we thought that only regular exercise did that.
So eat a DASH diet with extra vegetables and some garlic and some extra virgin olive oil and eat fish or take omega 3 supplements. Consider adding some red wine in moderation.
Or eat a Mediterranean diet with a bit less pasta and more vegetables and eat fish or take omega 3 supplements.
These two diets with these additions overlap a bit. And they are low in omega 6 oils.
And, since they are decent on protein and high in nonstarchy vegetables and have very few fattening foods, many people who eat them experience almost effortless fat loss. It’s common for people who begin eating the DASH diet to lose 20 or 25 pounds if they have been eating more fattening foods and drinking regular or diet soft drinks before.
b) Gum disease is almost totally preventable mostly by brushing and flossing right. But most people who don’t do both well get gum disease.
Oops! The bacteria that go with gum disease boost the heck out of your level of chronic inflammation. And this goes on until the gum disease is all gone.
But you don’t have to go there or stay there!
People who, at least once a day every day -- floss their teeth and then brush them with special techniques and attention to brushing their gums with a soft bristled brush, get dozens of health benefits.
They get the obvious ones. They are less likely to have really bad breath. They are far less likely to get gum disease. And they are far more likely to keep their teeth. Plus they don’t have to pay for expensive gum disease treatments or pulling loose teeth or false teeth. And, their future appearance and breath will be far better. They’ll look younger and less poor than they otherwise would.
But they also get several massive health benefits besides those! Because of the damage from the bacteria in gum disease and the chronic inflammation in your system all the time, gum disease makes death, heart attacks, strokes, and Alzheimer’s disease all more likely. In addition, that inflammation also may help cause cancers and DOES help cause osteoarthritis. Really! Ouch!
There’s a special technique to flossing and brushing your teeth that makes it most effective.
You can schedule a teeth cleaning or check up at your Dentist’s office and ask for a lesson or two on how to brush and floss your teeth while you are there. (That’s how I learned to do both correctly. I got lucky and they volunteered to teach me.)
Here’s my short version.
They found that flossing first and then brushing was most effective.
When you floss don’t just get the floss between your teeth and remove it. After you have it between your teeth make a kind of x motion to clean down both side and into your gumline just a bit.
It only takes about one minute to do this.
(The main idea of both flossing and brushing correctly is to clean out the tiny food particles that otherwise get trapped just underneath your gumline. That’s what the bacteria get into to cause all the problems. So cleaning it out with flossing and brushing each day is the best defense.)
Then after you put a bit of toothpaste on your brush, brush the flat part of your back teeth on each side and top and bottom. That helps prevent cavities there particularly if you use a fluoride toothpaste.
All the rest of the brushing is for your gums although your teeth get brushed in the process. Brush the gumline inside and out on both top and bottom. AND, angle your brush at a 45 degree angle so it digs into your gumline just a bit. That’s why to use a soft tooth brush and be a bit gentle in your brushing. Then brushy your gumline inside and out and top and bottom a second time. Then on the third pass, brush your gums directly just above the gumline also inside and out and top and bottom.
If you do each of these three steps in 20 or 30 seconds, all your brushing takes less than two minutes.
So both flossing and brushing together takes about 3 minutes or just a bit more.
If you don’t have a soft toothbrush or a new soft one, buy a soft bristled toothbrush sometime this week. (Brushing your teeth at the gumline and brushing your gums directly is critically important to do. But medium and hard bristled tooth brushes damage your gums if you brush this way.)
If you don’t have floss, buy two containers of floss sometime this week. (That way when you run out of the first one, you begin using the second one which you then replace the next time you go to the store.)
Then make a very strong special effort to floss and then brush once every day. First thing after breakfast tends to work best. And do that for 3 weeks. After that, you are in the habit of doing it. Just resume if you notice you begin skipping. Pick a start date soon and begin then!
(What if you get super rushed some mornings? Even if you are so rushed you skip breakfast or a shower, always do at least a fast brushing. Then floss later that day after dinner. That way even when being that rushed, you both brush and floss once that day. Then always do both right after breakfast on the days you aren’t so rushed.
As a last resort, up to once a week, skip flossing. But make a strong effort to never skip two days in a row. If you do, it puts you at risk and you can tell the difference when you restart.)
Brushing and flossing this way every day is critical to your health. Virtually everyone can afford it.
And, even the best dentists can’t make up for all the damage if you don’t do it.
Not many people, even some dentists, don’t yet know that flossing and brushing can help prevent or improve osteoarthritis too.
But you are now one of them!
It also helps to get a teeth cleaning every 6 months at the dentist to remove the little bit of plaque your brushing and flossing miss.
That’s very important because this little bit of plaque hardens and acts like sandpaper to your gums. That also increases inflammation and can cause gum disease.
So if you have dental insurance or can afford to do this twice a year, it’s well worth it.
But what if you already have osteoarthritis or your efforts to turn off inflammation are good but not great?
Wouldn’t it be useful if there were other ways to turn off or turn down high chronic inflammation too?
c) There are two spices, both currently available as supplements that do just that.
In addition they provide some of the most important health benefits known in many other areas and have very few side effects.
There are also several spices and an herbal supplement that have a component in them that also lowers inflammation. It may also help repair joint damage.
And it is a safe and natural anabolic that helps your growth hormones prevent damage and heals damage and keeps your muscles strong -- although adding strength training enhances these effects.
The first two spices are turmeric and ginger. They are biologically related and have some overlapping effects.
Turmeric or the curcumin in it has an intense yellow color and a slightly harsh taste. Almost all curries have it as a key ingredient.
If you eat turmeric as a spice or eat curried food that contains it or take curcumin or turmeric supplements AND eat some black pepper at the same time and do this from several times a day to once a day you get some incredibly powerful health benefits!
You get enough inflammation reduction to turn down arthritis pain about as well as aspirin or NSAIDs but with other health benefits instead of side effects.
This daily inflammation reduction also helps prevent osteoarthritis. And, it helps prevent heart disease and many cancers.
But it’s first found health benefit is that it prevents and may even help reverse early cases of Alzheimer’s disease. It turns down tau protein which is now thought to create the initial damage. It lowers beta amyloid that tends to build up and worsen the damage. It even helps remove some beta amyloid over time.
But why the black pepper at the same time? Here are two reasons. One researcher found that turmeric was 200 times more absorbed and used when taken with black pepper! That’s a huge difference. The other was that in the research that found turmeric lowered tau protein now thought to be the initial trigger for Alzheimer’s disease, it did so when given with black pepper!
Turmeric and curcumin also help lower LDL cholesterol by up to 20 points when you get them that regularly.
Between all their effects they are also one of the best ways to prevent heart disease.
Ginger works better as a spice in different foods including sweet foods. It’s a bit hotter but far less harsh in its taste than turmeric.
Ginger also does a good job lowering inflammation. And well used as a spice it can really help foods taste good.
Ginger too lowers inflammation and LDL cholesterol and has other heart protective effects. One of those, it’s blood thinning effect, can be problematic in people taking blood thinning drugs however.
Lastly, ginger increases your resistance to nausea and air and sea sickness enough to be quite valuable for that use.
There are also several spices and an herbal supplement that have a component in them that also lowers inflammation. It may also help repair joint damage.
And it is a safe and natural anabolic that helps your growth hormones prevent damage and heals damage and keeps your muscles strong -- although adding strength training enhances these effects.
The ingredient is ursolic acid. It’s in many kinds of greens and the spices based on them. In addition to lowering inflammation once researcher found it acts as a safe and natural anabolic helping to preserve muscle and other lean body weight as people get older. It also may make your immune system enough more effective to speed your recovery from colds and the flu. That effect is substantial enough that as a drug, ursolic acid has anticancer effects.
So what’s it in?
It’s in most of the plant based savory spices, Oregano, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, and Basil. And a kind of basil called Holy Basil has enough you can get holy basil as a supplement. Oddly, it’s also high in apple peel. So another way to get it is to eat organic, unwaxed whole apples.
Currently you can also get ursolic acid as a supplement directly. But we know that getting ursolic acid as a spice or food is effective. It likely works as a direct supplement too. But these spices may well have complementary phytonutrients that make it work better.
Of course if you get osteoarthritis, there are also supplements such as glucosamine and chondroitin and hyaluronic acid and shea oil that each may help.
But eating right in this way; preventing gum disease; and taking these directly antiinflammatory supplements and spices are the 3 best ways to prevent and improve osteoarthritis.
Labels: 3 ways to lower inflammation without drugs, Avoid or improve osteoarthritis and new discovery, new discovery and 3 ways to prevent osteoarthritis by lowering inflammation
posted by David at 2:19 PM
2 Comments:
Bioidentical Hormones for Prevention of Osteoarthritis
Degenerative osteoarthritis is a common form of progressive joint destruction from years of wear and tear. Recent medical research shows that menopausal estrogen deficiency is a causative factor in developing degeneration of the joints. Bioidentical Hormone Supplementation not only reduces risk for developing degenerative disease, it also reduces over-all mortality.
For More: http://jeffreydach.com/2012/01/05/bioidentical-hormones-osteoarthritis-z.aspx
jeffrey dach md
1. I believe, as clearly Dr Dach likely does, that bioidentical hormone replacement likely avoids the problems that the somewhat similar drug compny hormone replacements most women were using were tested to have.
But I've not tested this or know of any research. So, if you use the bioidentical hormones as another way to prevent or improve osteoarthitis, you should read the information on the foods and spices and supplements that help prevent cancers. Cranberries and real 100% cranberry juice help prevent ovarian cancer for example.
The other thing you should do if you possibly can is to avoid all tobacco smoke. Tobacco as its currently grown contains a radioactive element which can cause and has caused cancers everywhere in your body your blood goes to once it gets into your blood stream.
2. You should also avoid tobacco smoke to help avoid osteoarthritis!
It seems exposure to tobacco smoke also helps cause or worsen gum disease and likely increases inflammation directly!
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