Easing Arthritis Part 3

The step in easing your arthritis pain is to watch your diet. Yes you may be feeding your pain! I've talked about many of these foods before in great detail, but it bears mentioning some of the culprits again.

Some of the foods that promote inflammation are red meat and high fructose corn syrup. Both these contain lots of omega 6 which is not the omega that you want. These fatty acids actually promote inflammation.

One of the biggest promoters of inflammation is sugar, especially processed sugar which is in almost every processed food in the grocery store. In these very same processed foods there is often saturated fats which also promote inflammation. A side not here is the fact that these foods are contributing to the obesity in this country and if you have arthritis and you are overweight, just think for a moment about the stress you are putting on your joints, especially knees, hips and the spine. Is it any wonder that we are seeing such an increase in the number of hip and knee replacements. How many people do you know that complain of back pain? Are they overweight?

Tomorrow - some foods to focus on.

Protecting Your Brain Health #2

Another way to protect your brain health is whatever you are doing to protect you heart health. Anything that you do to help the blood vessels in your heart will also help the blood vessels in your head.

This can include things like controlling your blood pressure. Watching what you eat, like cutting down on sugar and other foods related to causing inflammation.

Inflammation Continued

If the inflammatory process continues beyond when it is helpful, then we can develop things such an increase in pain in the area. In joints this process may result in loss of cartilage. Remember that I have mentioned previously that heart disease specifically is often related to inflammation.

While we tend to think of injuries as being the cause of inflammation, there are other triggers such as poor diet and lack of exercise. The goal always is to relieve the pain and slow the progression.

So the first thing to look at is your diet. Avoid foods that tend to promote inflammation. These are foods that contain omega-6 fatty acids such as red meat and high-fructose corn syrup. Other prime candidates in this list are processed sugars and saturated fats. Most of these types are foods if present in the diet have also lead to an increase in weight, which further stresses joints and exacerbates the inflammatory process.

Juices Versus Raw Fruit

I can't tell you how many times when I ask people if they are eating fruit, they say oh yes, I drink juice. A big buzzer goes off in my head every time. Most people think that the juice is as healthy or healthier than the fruit. Not true.

Read those labels. There is a reason to eat the raw, fresh fruit. First and formost, raw fruit contains good fiber. Juices such as apple juice contain absolutely no fiber. Secondly, most juices contain sugar which makes them a sweet drink, but not particularly healthy.

Even fresh squeezed orange juice, you're losing a lot of the fiber contained in the orange. Better to eat the orange!

Should I Eat Frozen Yogurt or Ice Cream?

You may be surprised at my answer here. Pick the ice cream, just don't eat too much. Frozen yogurt is another one of those products that the manufacturers have perpetrated as a health food. The fact of the matter is that while yogurt with live culture actually does support your digestive tract, frozen yogurt does not contain any active live cultures! In addition, the frozen yogurt is often loaded with artificial sweeteners which actually make your sugar cravings increase. This is not to mention all of the other chemicals in the frozen yogurt.

Read those labels and you'll see. Pick the ice cream, just limit your portion. Here's a trick instead of buying the 5 gallon bucket of ice cream, buy a quart of smaller size and then eat less of it. You can put it in a custard cup which will look full but you will be getting less.

What Is A Healthy Food To Eat

There are lots of healthy foods out there and some that are not so healthy. You as a consumer have to be able to discern what is healthy and what is not. The first thing I would tell you is not to listen to the advertising by the company pushing a product. They can say whatever they want to get you to buy the food. The best example I can think of at the moment is the ad for Fruit Loops which says it is a healthy choice.

So what is healthy and what is not. Cereals have been drilled into us by the media as the healthy thing to eat for breakfast. We are told how much fiber they have, but in fact there really isn't much fiber in cereals. The other thing about cereals is that most of them are loaded with sugar. Read those labels. You should be looking for cereals that contain at least 5 grams of fiber and less than 5 grams of sugar.

The best cereals are the old fashioned ones like oatmeal or the ones tha most people don't really want to eat like All-Bran. Look for whole grains, these are your best choices.

Sugar Load in Drinks

I just read an article about an idea to add a specific tax on sodas and energy drinks. I think that is probably not a bad idea. Research has shown that sodas and energy drinks are contributing to obesity in this country. Obesity is linked to heart disease, arthritis, cancer and Type 2 Diabetes.

Even the sodas and energy drinks with artificial sweeteners are contributing to the obesity. People believe that because it says there are no calories that it is safe to drink as much as they want. Not true.

One of the reasons people need to be aware of this problem is that sodas and energy drinks are the largest source of added sugar to the diet of young Americans. Teenage boys consume on average 1 quart a day.

The other misconception is that energy drinks or juices are OK. Look at the calorie load from sugar. Cranberry juice coctail has 200 calories and 12 teaspoons of sugar in a 12 ounce serving!

Better drinks to be drinking, try water with a little lemon or lime. Unfortunately, the soft drink industry is not going to change their drinks any time soon because this is extremely profitable for them.

One Last Sugar Substitute

One last sugar substitute that I want to talk about is agave nectar. This is derived from a plant native to Mexico. It is not calorie-free, but is does contain more calories than refined sugar. More importantly, agave nectar has a lower glycemic index than sugar, so it is less likely to drive to blood sugar levels high. Refined sugar has a glycemic index in the 60's while agave nectar is in the 30's.

For more on glycemic index, see my February 19, 2009 post. The bottom line is the lower the glycemic index the less likely the blood sugar will be raised into levels that are really dangerous for our bodies.

Agave nectar can help you actually lose weight, because you will be using less of it than you would refined sugar.

Natural Sweeteners

One of the best natural sweeteners that has been around for literally centuries is stevia. Many of you may be familiar with stevia. The USA took a long time before they would allow stevia to be sold here. The FDA has approved stevia (not that I necessarily agree that if the FDA has approved anything it is good for you). But what will happen now is that we are likely to begin seeing foods made with stevia.

My recommendation regarding stevia is to be sure you get pure stevia. There are products out there like Truvia and PureVia which actually not only have stevia in them, but the manufacturers mix the stevia with erythritol. See yesterday's post regarding erythritol. I do not recommend the blended stevia products.

There are some other natural sweeteners out there and those include raw honey, organic maple syrup, and sorghum syrup. Unlike stevia, these three natural sweeteners have about the same number of calories as refined sugar. But they are far better for your body then refined sugar.

Sugar Substitutes Continued

I just want to say a couple more things about sugar substitutes. It probably all boils down to this, why would you put a chemical into your body that has the potential to create so much harm? Are the calories from sugar that important? The media has made us believe that they are. But why not utilize natural sugar or natural sweeteners instead. Moderation is the key my friends.

I failed to mention one other sweetener that is out there called erythritol, which is a sugar alcohol. Once again this is a chemical that has been manufactured, and while it is advertised as natural, it is not. The chemical compound is one that has been manufactured and has the potential for side effects just as any manufactured compound.

Now I also don't believe in just using sugar, because refined sugar is a lot of empty calories that just leaves you wanting more. I do believe in natural sweeteners and I'll talk about those tomorrow.

Sugars and Sugar Substitutes

There is a lot of controversy over what to use, a sugar substitute or real sugar. I was asked this recently and so I want to give you my thoughts. First, let's talk about the big three substitutes, saccharin, aspartame and sucralose. The first of these to hit the market was saccharin back in 1957, so it has been around a long time. There is lots of research out there and most of it says the saccharin increases the risk of cancer.

Aspartame was introduced as being superior to saccharin, however, it too has been shown in research studies to increase the risk of cancer. About 17 years after aspartame came sucralose, which is not the safest substitute out there by any means.

Sucralose is manufactured by chlorinating sugar. Now my first problem here is that we don't need more chlorine in our bodies competing with our thyroid gland. I'll talk more about this tomorrow.

Sugar

The other white mentioned yesterday is sugar. So how does it set off the inflammatory process?

When you eat something that contains a lot of sugar, the pancreas puts out a large amount of insulin in response to the sugar. This increase in insulin turns on the inflammatory genes to begin producing inflammation in the body.

Not only does this set off the inflammatory genes, but the as we gain weight from eating the refined sugars, we have a yo-yo effect of our blood sugar going up and down and stress on the pancreas. This ultimately can result in Type II Diabetes. Another reason to get rid of the excess sugar in our diets.