Osteoarthritis: diet, nutritional guide and herbs

Published: 05/01/2011 - Updated: 09/18/2018

Osteoarthritis, which is also known as degenerative arthrosis and hypertrophic arthritis, is a degenerative disorder that affects mainly the joints of the hand, spine, shoulder, hip and knee. It is characterized by a degeneration of cartilage and formation of osteophytes (neoplasms of ossified cartilage). The difference between rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis is that the first is not degenerative but from autoimmune origin.

Osteoarthritis Symptoms

  • Swollen and stiff joints of the hand, hip, knee and spine.
  • Pain when moving the affected part, but in a few cases there is not pain but inflammation.
  • Stiff joints, especially at night.

Types of osteoarthritis

There are two types of osteoarthritis:

The primary and secondary osteoarthritis.
The first has no clear trigger, is associated with advancing age and heredity. The secondary has a specific trigger.

Causes

  • Trauma.
  • Obesity, which increases the severity of arthritis and osteoarthritis in the hands, knees and hips.
  • Congenital deformities.
  • Metabolic or endocrine diseases.
  • Final result of inflammatory arthritis.
  • The mental rigidity, inflexibility, the desire to punish and dominate other predispose to arthritis. Perfectionist and authoritarian characters tend to suffer from this condition.

Osteoarthritis Treatments

If you want a complete cure, you should know that the body has the ability to recover itself, but it is necessary to know the required information for self-healing. Often, in the eagerness to heal, we use only medicines and treatments to prevent or control the symptoms, which do not solve the problem but, ultimately, may worsen or simply make the body drug dependent.

Drug treatments with painkillers sedate the body but do not solve the problem, just postpone it. A complete cure starts from the start of a new attitude to the disease: it is known that in natural medicine there are not diseases, only a toxic body and blood of poor quality, which degenerates into an endless number of consequences that are called diseases.

While complete healing requires a real willingness and surrender, you should know that when you make the necessary changes, health comes easily. We should rely on the ability of the body, perhaps some people have "incurable" diseases but for the mind there are no limits.

The first step of healing

As in any condition, is essential to start by having a proper diet for your body begins to clean impurities avoid acidic and toxic blood.

Not Allowed Foods:

You need to remove junk and refined products in the diet as well as fried meats, red meat and milk. White sugar (and its derivatives) is one of the products that cause health problems, so it is highly recommended that you leave it if you really want to heal. Sugar creates too many toxins in the blood and irritates organs and systems; it also affects the natural acidity of the blood. It might be difficult to leave this product if you're used to, but try little by little, you can substitute with honey or fruit sugar (stevia), but use just a little sweetener.

Necessary food in the diet:

On the other hand, you should increase the consumption of fresh vegetables, preferably raw, which help re-mineralize the body and therefore help to reshape the tissue and cartilage. Besides vegetables, you should upgrade or replace refined flour by whole grains flour, vegetables milks, sprouts, fish and fruits.

You should use only cold pressed oils like olive oil, nuts, sesame, canola and safflower.

Eat oily fish rich in omega-3 which will help you heal. The salmon and tuna are great. The cartilage and shark liver are also an excellent complements to the joint health.

For de-acidification, you must take herbal fennel, licorice, caraway, anise or corn silk tea. The infusions should be taken between meals.
The eating habits also counts, because if you eat disorderly and unbalanced, this will cause a high level of residue on your body.

Diet

  • FASTING: the fruit should be eaten alone, citric and acid are great in the morning. Starting your day with a glass of water with lemon juice is great for cleaning intestines and blood. Drink this and do not take anything else during the 20 minutes that follow.
  • BREAKFAST: A bowl of fruit like papaya, oatmeal or almond milk with toast.
  • BETWEEN MEALS: choose infusion.
  • FOOD: Choose what you like but avoid the non-recommended food and don’t mix anything sweet at this time. We recommend vegetable soup, salmon salad, fresh salads, miso soup, rice, etc.
  • DINNER: avocado, fruits such as apples or pears, rice with vegetable, vegetarian sandwich or steamed vegetables.

Also…

Keep a healthy weight: You need to lose weight if you have overweight, as this aggravates and exacerbates the problem. A cleansing diet accompanied by low-impact exercise such as swimming, cycling and walking is effective in the treatment of osteoarthritis. The high-impact exercise such as jogging or running can aggravate pain.

Herbs and spices to reduce inflammation

Use them to season your dishes, do not hesitate to take into account or in your refrigerator the following herbs that will help you heal:

  • Turmeric, parsley, dill, fennel seeds, anise, cumin, mint, oregano, chervil, thyme, sage, rosemary, coriander and ginger.

And finally …

Do not forget to consider the emotional factor, remember that the body speaks what the mind doesn’t. Check if you are being inflexible or if you have too rigid ideas and linear thinking. You need to reconsider new ways to deal with experiences.

About the author
  • K. Laura Garcés G

    Writer, therapist and lecturer. She is a lover of natural medicine and the power of mind and emotions in body and life. In addition, he has studied nutrition and develops appropriate diets to support this healing process.She has written more than 1500 articles in magazines in Spain and Mexico, winner of two literature contests. Linkedin.