Diet for Osteoarthritis

A Proper Diet for Those With Osteoarthritis

As with almost any disease, diet and nutrition play an important role in maximizing your recovery and putting you on the road to a healthy lifestyle. For arthritis sufferers, maintaining a healthy weight can make a huge difference in the amount of pain and swelling occurring in the joints.

Diet and foods have an amazing effect on our body - from allergic reactions to releasing feel-good chemicals in our brains. With arthritis, make sure you’re eating particular nutrients that prevent inflammation and therefore assist in the management of osteoarthritis.

By consuming a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as fish, and vegetable, nuts, and flaxseed oil, you can reduce the frequency of flare-ups within your joints that causes painful tenderness.

Omega-3 foods prohibit the body’s production of inflammatory immune compounds called leukotrienes. Researchers have also found that people who ate at least two servings of baked or broiled oily fish per week reduced their chances of suffering from arthritis almost in half.

Oily fish include salmon, mackerel, herring, sardines, anchovies, and albacore tuna. You can also take fish oil capsules to reduce stiffness and lessen tenderness in the joints. Studies show that you should eat between 2 to 9 grams of fish per day, but consult your doctor before doing so as large doses of fish oil can slightly thin the blood.

In fact, it’s been found by researchers that some patients suffering from arthritis can avoid symptoms altogether if they watch which foods tend to cause an increase in inflammation and suffering.

Many patients have been known to experience symptoms or osteoarthritis after consuming “nightshade” foods such as potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. When these people avoided such foods, their symptoms disappeared or lessened to a great degree.

Orange juice has also been mentioned repeatedly as a stimulant of osteoarthritis pain. When avoided, you may see a reduction in the symptoms of osteoarthritis. If you think certain foods are affecting your lifestyle in living with the disease, try an elimination diet where you single out one food at a time to decipher which cause more pain and which are neutral. If you can follow this prescribed diet for your osteoarthritis, you'll be much better off.

While many of these nutritional tips may help you eliminate or decrease your symptoms associated with osteoarthritis, the only proven connection between nutrition and the disease is that being overweight carries a highly increased risk of developing joint injuries and osteoarthritis, not to mention a whole host of other diseases and conditons. Get healthy and stay healthy and you can help stave off many different ailments and diseases.

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