Last week we introduced the subject by taking a closer look at arthritis, including diet and exercise. Today, we will continue looking at exercise while also delving into internal causes.
Movement is vital to help keep arthritis at bay. Resistance training helps in two ways. It strengthens bones and moves the joints, which helps lubricate the area. In resistance training, intensity is measured in relation to the load you can lift at maximum, or for one repetition. Sufferers of arthritis should start with exercises they can comfortably perform with at least 16 repetitions, at a steady breathing tempo.
Those wishing to build muscle, you will have noticed in the gym, tend to lift heavier weights with fewer reps. This is not what people suffering from arthritis are trying to achieve. Lubricated movement would be the best result.
Moving on, it is easier on the joints and safer to carry out all exercises in the horizontal position. This will minimise the load on the joints. Using an exercise ball is a good idea and other types of exercise carried out on a mat.
Swimming, or even just water aerobics, are other excellent options to reduce the load on your joints. A good way to start an exercise programme is by swimming first, to get the body moving, while supporting it in the water.
Whenever exercising with arthritis, it is important to only move through the range of motion that is without pain. As mentioned last week, if you exercise, or push your joints past your comfort zone, it can increase inflammation in the joints, which are already inflamed. This will make the pain worse and ultimately weaken the joints and muscles. Patience is required using low intensity and over a period of time you will be amazed at what can be achieved.
Finally, if you are starting an exercise programme from scratch, it is always worth consulting a qualified professional who can offer ideas and guide you with a safe and productive programme.
It is important to look at the connection between the gut and arthritis. In the 1990s, the connection between gut flora and a multitude of autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus, type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease and inflammatory bowel disease became not only respectable lines of research but promising ones. Many papers were published and caused medical practitioners to start considering a different view.
However, it wasn’t until 2003 – when Frank Lipman, a practitioner in New York City who treats celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Donna Karan, went high profile with articles about another celebrity patient – that the link between RA and parasites became popularised.
Whenever exercising with arthritis, it is important to only move through the range of motion that is without pain
Lipman combines western medicine with alternative therapies and a heavy emphasis on a healthy diet. He eliminates all processed foods and sugars and believes that a dysbiosis, or altered microbiome, seems to cause systemic inflammatory problems and often autoimmune issues. Correcting the microbiome and creating more balance may involve treating parasites, ‘bad’ bacteria or yeast and often a combination of all three.
Lipman says: “I always start with diet, removing proinflammatory foods or foods that are hard to digest or may be triggering inflammation. Then I add probiotics and nutrients to help with healing the lining of the gut. Unfortunately, at this stage, we are guessing what to use to kill the pathogens, as there are no accurate tests to ascertain which particular bugs are causing the problem. So I always start with herbal antimicrobials and if those don’t work, I move on to pharmaceutical antiparasitics or antifungals or antibiotics.”
Today, Lipman’s patients are living proof that this treatment approach to RA (the same approach used by microbiologist Roger Wyburn-Mason in the 1970s) is highly effective. After several months of treatment, the patient mentioned above has no RA markers in his blood, his joints are healthy, he is pain free and feeling great.
New studies linking gut health and RA are being conducted with greater frequency. For example, researchers at the New York University School of Medicine, funded in part by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and the National Human Genome Research Institute, recently discovered that 75 per cent of people with newly onset, untreated RA had Prevotella copri bacteria in their intestinal tracts, as well as reductions in several groups of beneficial microbes such as Bacteroides. A direct causal link between P. copri and RA has yet to be proven, but continued studies are underway, looking for the connection.
Here is a four-step anti-parasite programme: adopt a healing diet; follow a low-inflammation diet eating inflammation-reducing vegetables and fruits, such as broccoli, leafy greens, brightly coloured vegetables, yams and sweet potatoes; eat deepwater fish, such as salmon, cod and halibut, as well as organic chicken and turkey; and eat berries, apples, bananas and mangoes, but avoid highly acidic fruits.
Other steps include cleansing yourself of parasites, re-establishing good gut health and eliminating Candida. The process is a complete lifestyle change and may take some time to kick in, but it appears to have worked for many people.
kathryn@maltanet.net