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Mucous-free diet for arthritis
I suffer from arthritis in the joints of my finger. I have now been advised to cut out dairy products and caffeine. How is this going to help?
Since nutritionists and naturopaths treat rheumatoid arthritis as an inflammatory disease where the body appears to react adversely to itself, you can only get rid of the problem by taking steps to try and prevent this abnormal reaction by your immune system. One theory that is widely accepted by complementary health practitioners is that the waste products that are formed when we eat too much protein in our diet get dumped in the joints and in other tissues where they can trigger exactly this reaction.
Dairy foods are, of course, a rich source of protein and so can make this problem worse. They also encourage the body to make more mucous. To see how a mucous-free diet can help relieve your arthritis, you need to be clear that this mucous, which is actually made up of protein deposits that have absorbed water inside the body, is not the same kind of naturally-forming mucous as, say, the coating of the digestive tract. While the latter serves a useful protective function, the first type of mucous can cause problems including arthritis.
Dr Peter Mansfield, a former NHS GP and now the founder of a health-promoting organisation called Good HealthKeeping is a big fan of the mucous-free diets which exclude protein, and concentrate instead on organic fresh fruits and vegetables and wholegrains. He says caffeine makes arthritis worse because it can over-stimulate and exaggerate many of the body’s reactions. It is not, though, he suggests as important to cut out caffeine as it is to reduce the dairy content of your diet.
*For more details of Good HealthKeeping’s mucous-free Cleansing Diet call 01507-601655. A small charge will be made for a copy of the diet to cover administration costs.