Arthritis II

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Arthritis II

 

ARTHRITIS: THERE'S MORE YOU CAN DO THAN JUST LEARN TO

LIVE WITH IT

 

By the time you are 88 years old, you have

consumed 300 tons of food, air and water.

(R. Buckminster Fuller)

 

ARTHRITIS AND DIET

 

It is party-line medical doctrine that there is little

or no connection between arthritis and nutrition.

That belief belongs on the agenda of the next

World-Is-Flat Society meeting. We truly are what we

eat. We started from a union of two tiny half-cells.

All that we are today, our trillions and trillions of

cells, results from the molecules we've accumulated

from breathing, drinking, and eating our food.

 

How can arthritis, or any other disease for that

matter, be unrelated to diet?

Naturopaths hold that the etiology of arthritis

parallels a history of bad diet. You will

rarely see an arthritic patient that is not a

cooked-food-and-meat-eater.

 

Proof exists, and plenty of it. Francis M. Pottenger,

M.D. did nutritional experiments on hundreds of cats

over a period of two decades. He found that cats fed

our typical cooked diet did in fact develop many

degenerative diseases, including arthritis. What is

especially interesting is that Dr. Pottenger found you

could reverse the condition by feeding the animals

only fresh, raw foods. (References are available from

the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, La Mesa, CA

92041)

 

 

ARTHRITIS AND CALCIUM

 

The Arthritis Foundation has stated that the average

adult eats only about 550 milligrams or so of calcium

daily. The US Recommend Daily Allowance is between

800 and 1200 mg/day, and that itself may be to low.

Everyone knows that arthritis, whether rheumatoid or

osteoarthritis, is related to bones and joints... and

so is what they are largely made out of: calcium.

Nationwide calcium deficiency, and NO arthritis

connection with diet? How curious.

 

If most adults are deficient in calcium intake, no

wonder there are joint and bone problems in America.

 

Calcium deposits or degeneration of the joints

themselves may both be seen as two aspects of a common

disease if one will rise above a craving for

differential diagnosis. It often surprises

practitioners to discover that people with calcium

deposits are actually as calcium deficient as those

people that are losing bone mass. Remember: excess

dietary calcium does NOT cause calcium deposits.

Excess calcium is simply not absorbed, and is excreted

in the feces. It is a lack of calcium in the diet

that causes calcium deposits.

 

Two quick calcium supplementation suggestions:

1. Take an easily absorbed form of calcium, such as

calcium citrate or calcium lactate.

2. Divide the dose. Absorption is best if you don’t

take all your calcium at once.

 

 

ARTHRITIS AND VITAMIN C

 

Deficiency of vitamin C-rich citrus fruits has been

known to produce scurvy since 1753, over 250 years

ago. One of the chief symptoms of scurvy is profound

joint troubles. Sailors with scurvy used to be heard

literally rattling as they walked on deck. At that

time, no one believed that there was any connection

between diet and joint disorders, either. Then ship's

surgeon James Lind cured the condition in two weeks

with just one lemon and two oranges a day.

 

" Arth- " means joint and " -itis " means inflammation.

It would be asking a lot of a few pieces of fruit to

cure it. However, really large doses of vitamin C

have been shown to reduce all forms of inflammation

throughout the body. The joints are no exception.

For someone who has never experienced it, it is hard

to believe that simple vitamin C can help where

medicines have not. No belief is necessary; the proof

is in trying it. The amount of vitamin C needed is

the amount that will get the job done. You take

enough C to be symptom-free, whatever the amount might

be. You do not take the amount of vitamin C that you

think should help; you take the amount that DOES help.

(There are other vitamin C related articles posted at

this website.)

 

In addition to reducing inflammation, vitamin C also

helps form collagen, the protein " glue " that holds

cells together. Collagen is especially important in

connective tissue to insure healthy ligaments,

cartilage, tendons and the joints themselves. Scurvy,

exemplified by our rattling sailor mentioned earlier,

is what happens to joints when vitamin C levels are

inadequate. If you think scurvy is extinct in modern

life, may I remind you that William J. McCormick, M.D.

showed that every cigarette smoked robs the body of 25

mg. of vitamin C. That is a 500 mg deficit " each day "

from only one pack daily. With a US RDA of only 60 mg

per day, we can see that scurvy is not only possible

but likely in the nearly 29 million Americans who

still smoke.

 

Without ENOUGH vitamin C collagen cannot be properly

made. " Abnormalities in this protein (collagen) are

basic to the crippling deformities associated with

rheumatic diseases. " (Rivers, J.M. " Ascorbic Acid in

Metabolism of Connective Tissue, " New York State

Journal of Medicine, vol 65: pp 1235-1238, 1965) The

key is to " use " enough. Studies showing little

vitamin C benefit generally employed only a few

hundred milligrams of C daily. " Thousands " of

milligrams, at least, are required for clinical

improvement. Back in 1950, 4,000 mg was shown to be

effective by B. F. Massell

( " Antirheumatic Activity of Ascorbic Acid in Large

Doses, " New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 242: pp

614-615). In Germany in 1952, Baufeld used 6,000 mg

daily, often by injection. ( " Ascorbic Acid in the

Treatment of Polyarthritis, " Deutsche Gesundheitswesen

(Berlin), vol. 7, p 1077.) In 1953, Greer used 8,000

to 12,000 mg per day. (Medical Times, vol. 81 pp.

483-484.) It may well take more than that for some

patients.

 

Arthritis is not caused by aspirin deficiency. It may

indeed be caused by nutritional deficiency. That is

how Dr. Pottenger produced arthritis in cats only on a

cooked (read " vitamin C deficient " ) diet.

 

" There can be no doubt, " writes biochemist Irwin

Stone, " about the intimate association of ascorbic

acid (vitamin C) and the collagen diseases. " (The

Healing Factor, Grosset and Dunlap, 1972, p. 109) A

person with arthritis seems to require vastly more

vitamin C to correct the problem than the deficiency

it took to cause it.

 

 

B-VITAMINS AND ARTHRITIS

 

Look at the work of William Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D. This

physician suspected an arthritis-diet deficiency

connection and acted on it. One of Dr. Kaufman's

primary tools was niacinamide, (or niacin, vitamin

B-3). He gave 250 milligrams of niacinamide (the form

of niacin that does not cause a warm flush) every 1

1/2 hours for a daily total of ten doses. That is

2,500 mg. a day, not at all more than many doctors

today prescribe to lower serum cholesterol. The

results was improved grip strength and joint mobility.

Dr. Kaufman went on to treat close to one thousand

patients with niacinamide plus the B-vitamins thiamin

(B-1), riboflavin (B-2), pyridoxine (B-6) and

pantothenic acid. It will not surprise you that he

also gave large doses of vitamin C. What will

surprise you is that he started using vitamins to

successfully treat arthritis as early as 1935, and

niacin in 1937, immediately after it was identified.

(Journal of the International Academy of Preventive

Medicine, Winter, 1983.)

 

One cannot help but wonder why vitamin therapies are

not used everywhere today if they were so helpful in

the 1930's. Have vitamins mysteriously lost their

value, or could it be that they are cheap and provide

no profit incentive for large pharmaceutical

companies?

 

Dr. John M. Ellis, a physician in Texas, published an

entire book on vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine) in 1983

entitled Free of Pain (Dallas: Southwest Publishing).

Linus Pauling reports in How To Live Longer and Feel

Better (1986) that Ellis found that " B-6 shrinks the

synovial membranes that line the weight-bearing

surfaces of the joints. It thus helps to control pain

and to restore mobility in the elbows, shoulders,

knees and other joints. " While very large doses of

B-6 alone may cause transient neurological side

effects, relatively modest doses of around 75 to 300

mg daily are very safe. The

safety of one B-vitamin is magnified by giving it with

the rest of the B-complex.

 

What should the arthritic person be eating? Perhaps

we may reduce this discussion to the following

protocol:

 

* Primarily raw food diet including cultured dairy

products such as cheese and yogurt

* 75 to 300 mg B-6 daily, preferably with a

B-complex supplement

* Niacinamide every two hours or so, up to a

thousand milligrams or more daily

* Vitamin C to saturation (as much as the body

will hold without loose bowels)

 

In healing, I think it is important not only to know

what to do, but also to know WHY you are doing it.

" Here, take these " is not good medicine even if

" these " are vitamins. You will want to do additional

reading, beginning with the references cited above, on

ascorbic acid (vitamin C), niacinamide (vitamin B-3)

and pyridoxine (B-6) The benefits of a primarily raw

food diet is discussed in Kulvinskas, Viktoras (1975)

Survival into the 21st Century (Wethersfield, CT:

Omangod Press); and Wigmore, Ann (1964) Why Suffer?

(NY: Hemisphere Press); and Wigmore, Ann (1983) Be

Your Own Doctor (Garden City Park, NY: Avery.)

 

A more complete understanding makes for a more

complete cure.

 

Copyright C 1999 and prior years Andrew W. Saul.

From the book PAPERBACK CLINIC, available from Dr.

Andrew Saul, Number 8 Van Buren Street, Holley, New

York 14470.