Natural Treatments for Arthritis Go Head to Head with Dangerous Drugs

Natural Treatments for arthritis

There are lots of claims about natural treatments for arthritis, but which ones work?

Without any good answers, all too many of us drop back on drugs for arthritis pain.  The list can include drugs like steroids and NSAIDs.  These drugs come with a list of side effects that you would not want to experience (if you’re really up to learning all about why NSAIDs are so bad for your health, feel free to check out my eBook on the topic by clicking here).

A few years back, the drug companies were able to come up with a new version of the most common class of anti-inflammatories, the cyclo-oxygenase inhibitors.  This NSAID class includes drugs like ibuprofen, and indomethacin.  The problem with this class of drugs is that one of the enzymes they block just so happens to protect the lining of the stomach.  This is why the big risk with these drugs is bleeding ulcers and why some 20,000 people per year die as a result of taking these drugs.

Because of this tiny little side effect, researchers developed a class of drugs that do not block the one version of the enzyme that protects the stomach lining.  Thus was born the selective cyclo-oxygenase inhibitors that rose to the top of the drug food chain to become one of the most financially successful blockbuster drugs of its time.

At least, until it was determined that, while this drug was a wee bit safer on the stomach,  unfortunately this drug DID block on enzyme that protected the heart, leading to some 100,000+ heart attacks and who knows how many deaths from Vioxx alone.  To make matters worse, Merck hid this data for years until it blew up in their face, resulting in hundreds of lawsuits from families that lost their loved ones.

Luckily (for the drug companies) the public has a short memory and Celebrex is still available on the market and prescriptions are still being written today for patents with arthritis pain who probably forgot about the entire Vioxx debacle.

So, if you happen to be one of those patients whose primary care doctor also has a short memory and wrote you a prescription for Celebrex, there may be an answer.

This particular article pits the natural combination of glucosamine and chondroitin up against Celebrex in 606 patients with knee arthritis and severe pain (Kellgren and Lawrence grades 2–3 knee osteoarthritis and moderate-to-severe pain based on the Western Ontario and McMaster osteoarthritis index-WOMAC-score ≥301 an a 0–500 scale).

Patients received either 400 mg chondroitin sulfate, 500 mg glucosamine combination three times a day or 200 mg celecoxib (Celebrex) every day for 6 months.  Here’s what they found:

• The natural arthritis treatment group dropped 50.1% (WOMAC score).
• The drug-known-to-kill group had a matched 50.2% decrease.
• At 6 months, 79.7% of patients in the natural arthritis treatment group and 79.2% in the toxic arthritis drug (Celebrex, in case you’re not following along) group fulfilled OMERACT-OARSI criteria.
• Both groups had more than a >50% reduction in joint swelling and effusion.

Sounds like a pretty even match, right?  Yeah–except that neither glucosamine nor chondroitin, in the history of its use, has not been associated with even a single death (that I’m aware of–I’m sure there’s a patient or two who choked to death taking the supplements…), while Celebrex is in a class of drugs that is so bad for the heart that cardiology recommendations now state that NO heart disease patients should be on NSAIDs.

Oh..and it’s WAY cheaper.  So which one are YOU taking?

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Are Home Births More Risky?

Forget the meat of the actual article here.  Just skip to the conclusion to find out that home births have a three times higher risk of neonatal morbidity.

Scrap home births.  They’re dangerous.  Less medical intervention means higher risk of death to the baby.

But wait!  When we read through the meat of this particular article we get a different picture.  Here’s what the authors found:

• Planned home births had fewer maternal interventions (epidurals, electronic fetal heart rate monitoring, episiotomy, and operative delivery).
• Women in planned home births were less likely to experience lacerations, hemorrhage, and infections.
• Planned home births revealed less frequent prematurity, low birthweight, and assisted newborn ventilation.

So what gives?  How do we get these bad conclusions if some many good things were found in the study?  A few things to consider:

• The number of actual deaths is very small (so if you triple a very small risk but protect against everything else the outcomes are overall much better).
• If you read into the article itself, you find that the increased risk was all from one of the 12 studies looked at, and this particular study included preterm births and unplanned home deliveries, which do have an increased risk.

Talk about stacking the deck!!  So how could the one sentence conclusion be so derogatory considering the rest of the article??  Things that make you go “hmmm.”

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So this Artery Walks Into a Bar…

We all know that laughter is good for the soul, but did you know it was good for your arteries as well?

I guess the downside of this is that many of us in today’s society are under so much stress that we can’t really enjoy life, let alone let go and find laughter deep inside us.  We’re constantly focused on how many things are going wrong instead of how much positivity and joy we have around us.

Research has demonstrated that this stress begins to affect our children as well and increases their risk of depression later in life.  I know that since Keegan was young he frequently notes what a beautiful day it is and I always remind him of how lucky he is (about everything!) and how great life is.  Getting him started early on finding the joy in life and not having it squashed out of him…

I’ve heard it said that children laugh more than 100 times / day.  Adults?  A sad 15 times / day.

But what if the simple act of laughter was good for your blood vessels?  This particular study asked just this question.  Researchers took 17 healthy adults (23 to 42 years of age) and had them watch either 30 minutes of a comedy or a boring documentary.  Here’s what they found:

• Heart rate and blood pressure increased while watching the comedy (no changes while watching the documentary).
• Blood vessel health (as measured by ischemia-induced brachial artery flow-mediated vasodilation) increased 17% while watching the comedy.
• Blood vessel health decreased 15% while watching the documentary.
• Carotid arterial compliance (by simultaneous application of ultrasound imaging and applanation tonometry) increased 10% immediately after watching the comedy and took 24 hours to return to pre-comedy levels.

So, the next time you think about turning on the Hallmark channel, your heart and blood vessels may better appreciate watching Jeff Dunham instead.

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Are Public Health Recommendations Increasing the Risk of Diabetes?

You will find that most who understand physiology and stay current with the medical literature are no fans of dairy products for multiple reasons.

It’s a common allergen.  It has been linked to type 1 diabetes.  It is mucous forming and contributes to ear infections in children.

And there really are no benefits, despite what the public health messages continue to drill into us.  Dairy is NOT good for our bones (unless you are comparing it to Coke…).

In this particular study, we see that increased intake of dairy decreases a marker that indicates worse blood sugar handling (lower levels of 1,5 AG = increased risk of diabetes) that would increase the risk of diabetes.

Think about this…  Name another mammal that continues to drink milk after they’re weaned?  Mammalian milk is a high calorie drink designed to support rapid growth in the early stages of life.  How many of us need “rapid growth” at 30 years old?

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So I’m Prediabetic. Does This Mean I’ll Get Diabetes?

First of all, let me stress again that probably HALF of you reading this are prediabetic.

High cholesterol, low HDL, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, ringing in the ears, gallbladder problems, abdominal obesity, gout, skin tags…the list of problems associated with being prediabetic is quite extensive.

One of these is bad enough, but what if you happen to have, say, THREE of these factors?  Just how high is your risk?

In my experience, it is rare that someone is told they are prediabetic and had some concern over what this really means.  This condition is grossly and severely, unrecognized by mainstream medicine.

Back to the risk…

This particular study looked at how likely someone is to go on to develop diabetes is he or she has a certain number of these elements of prediabetes.  The bottom line?  While there is a lot of variability, there are some things that stand out.  The more risk factors you have, the more likely you are to go on to develop diabetes in 5 years.  If one of your risk factors includes high blood sugar, your risk is much higher.

To me, this means that, regardless of how high your risk is or how many people in your family have diabetes, it does NOT mean that you are going to develop diabetes.  Provided, of course, that you are making the right lifestyle choices.  You choose.

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Ditch the Remote and Head to the Beach to Avoid Diabetes

I’m not saying we should go lather on some baby oil and sit by the pool here in AZ in August from 11 to 1, but neither should we be slapping on SPF 80 to walk to the car.

This demonizing of the sun has had far more dangerous consequences than we could ever have imagined.  I’m all for public health and sanitation, but why does it seem like many of the recommendations like sun avoidance, increasing dairy intake and mindless devotion to vaccination all seem to have far reaching negative effects?

In this particular study, we find that those who had more sun exposure habits had a 30% lower risk of diabetes.  We can make an educated hypothesis that vitamin D is playing a role, but also that many times when we are outside we are more active.  Hiking anyone?

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Toss the Prozac and Try This for the Kiddos

Without dredging up horrid memories of high school, do you remember that our cells are made of a lipid bilayer?

That means that the outside of our cells are formed of two layers of fats sandwiched together.  For cells to function properly, a message needs to pass through this sandwich layer.  It works out that the healthier the fats in this sandwich, the better a message gets into or out of a cell.  Things just work better.

So, healthier fats = better messages.  Unhealthy fats = messages get lost.

Consider this in the brain.  Would you want the message to get to where it’s supposed to?  Of course.  So, better fats = better sandwich = better messages.

This can translate to neurotransmitters like serotonin or epinephrine or dopamine getting from one cell to another.  So, of course we would expect to see psychological problems like depression get better with higher intakes of healthy fats.  Seems pretty simple, huh?

Which leads us to this particular study, where researchers looked at the relationship between dietary fish intake and depressive symptoms in over 6500 Japanese children who were between 12 and 15 years of age.  Here’s what they found:

• In boys, higher fish intake was linked to 27% lower risk of having depressive symptoms.
• EPA intake had the strongest effect (29% for EPA, 21% for DHA).
• Looking at omega-3 intake (and not specifically fish intake), there was a 28% lower risk.
• The protective effect was limited to boys.

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How to Prevent Osteoarthritis After Injury

Knee arthritis and steroid injections

The more astute of us are rightfully concerned with developing arthritis as we age. Luckily, this is not a foregone conclusion.

Most people incorrectly think that injury to a joint is the only major factor that leads to the later development of arthritis in that joint. While any injury to a joint is an important player, there are other factors at play.

(I also have patients who state that his or her left knee pain is just from old age.  At this point I ask how much older it is than the other knee…)

For arthritis of the spine related to disc degeneration, we have known for a long time that a lifestyle that is pro-heart disease will also increase your risk for disc degeneration and spinal arthritis. The reason for this is simple—discs do not have their own blood supply. Instead, they are fed indirectly by small blood vessels. If these small blood vessels become filled with plaque, they can no longer deliver needed nutrients to the discs. With normal use, these discs will break down because they can’t meet the demands of daily life.

The surfaces of your joints are not too much different. Poor blood vessel health will lower the ability of your joint surfaces to get the nutrients they need to respond to day to day demands.

This means that a lifestyle that is designed to protect your heart will also protect your joints. Pretty cool. NOT killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

This particular study may give us even more insight into how we can protect our joints. In it, researchers looked at the ability of different types of fats (specifically saturated fats, omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids) to protect against damage to the medial meniscus of the knees of mice.

They found that saturated fats and omega 6 fatty acids did not protect against the later development of osteoarthritis and even increased the amount of arthritis that resulted, they increased extra bone formation around the joint (a hallmark of osteoarthritis) and increased scar formation.

Let me put this more plainly: The dietary choices you make WILL absolutely increase the damage to your joints that occurs with an injury, leading to more osteoarthritis in your joints years later.

Luckily, the omega 3 fatty acids were a different story.

The omega 3 fatty acids were able to enhance wound repair as well as lower the risk of later development of arthritis. Pretty cool that diet can play this powerful of a role.

In case you need a refresher on which fats to avoid, here’s some help:

• The main source of saturated fats include fats contained in our society’s poorly raised livestock.
• Omega 6 fatty acids are found in certain oils like corn, sunflower, soybean and peanut oils.
• Omega 3 fatty acids are found in nuts, seeds (such as flax), wild caught fish and game, certain grains (salba, quinoa as examples) and grass fed beef.

Just by making smart dietary choices combined with maintaining an ideal body weight and staying active you can go a long way towards protecting your joints for years to come.

Is would also seem that, just in case all the other things that they are good for has not been enough, fish oils supplements would play a role in preventing osteoarthritis, especially after injury.

Osteoarthritis is NOT something that has to happen to your joints. Think about that the next time you reach for that bag of chips…

 

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Do Migraines Increase Your Risk of Dying?

Let me clarify this once more.  Those experiencing migraines have something wrong with their physiology that just so happens to manifest as headaches.

The headaches are the downstream consequence of the problem, and are NOT the problem itself.  So to fix the problem, you need to look upstream and fix what is wrong.  If you experience migraines and your doctor has NOT talked to you about the absolute need to change your lifestyle, you should find a new doctor.  Period.

Just in case you think this is a strong statement, pay attention to this particular study.  In it, researchers looked at 18,725 men and women to see if migraine sufferers had a higher risk of dying from any cause (all-cause mortality).  Here’s what they found:

• People with migraine with aura had a 21% higher risk of dying from any cause.
• People with migraine with aura had a 27% higher risk of dying from heart disease.
• People with migraine with aura had a 40% higher risk of dying from a stroke.

This is a pretty strong concern.  And let me clarify again that taking medications to control your headaches (even if they work) will do NOTHING to alter your risk of these conditions because they haven’t actually fixed the problem.

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