So what's the science on whether diet can REALLY help osteoarthritis? 🌱Since we've discovered that inflammation plays a big part in OA, it makes sense that reducing inflammation through diet could help 🌱The framingham study was a large longitudinal study that followed over 1000 older people over time. From this they looked at data around diet and osteoarthritis 🌱People who ate high amounts of vitamin c in their diet (ie from citrus, berries, capsicum, and dark green veges) were 3x less likely to have progressive OA (ie it slowed down joint damage) 🌱People who ate high levels of dietary vitamin A (in orange coloured fruit and Vege) and E (in seeds and nuts) also had slower progression of OA 🌱Trials using supplements of these didn't find the same effect. 🌱 Vitamin c, e and a are all antioxidants, which reduce inflammation, so this data makes perfect sense 🌱Good levels of dietary Omega 3, and having a good omega 3 to omega 6 ratio, also appears to help OA. 🌱Increasing dietary omega 3 (oily fish, linseed, chia seeds, walnuts) and reducing omega 6 (refined plant oils) is the best way to do this 🌱Supplementing omega 3 at 450mg/day has also helped OA symptoms in trials 🌱Vitamin k plays an important role in bone health, and good dietary intake can help OA symptoms - via dark green veges and brassica (brocolli etc) 🌱Reducing cholesterol levels can also improve OA symptoms - you can do this by reducing animal based dietary fats, and increasing fibre, nuts, and soy 🌱Dietary bioactives are compounds in plant foods that may also improve OA symptoms via reducing inflammation - these include -flavinoids (in berries, citrus, grapes, green tea, dark green veges, apples), -caretenoids (in orange fruit and veges) -gluconsinolates (in brassica) -isoflavones (in Soy) -anthocyanins (in berries and grapes) 🌱Adequate vitamin D also helps OA 🌱Overall, eating a diet high in plant foods and low in saturated fats and processed foods (omega 6) helps OA symptoms and progression. Also get enough omega 3, and some sun ☀ 🌱Reducing refined carbs /added sugar also helps by reducing inflammation (see last post) 🌱Tag someone you think would like to read this!!
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-nutrition-society/article/potential-for-dietary-factors-to-prevent-or-treat-osteoarthritis/EE498B73B7E764DDF491A55C25B62779 https://www.bda.uk.com/resource/osteoarthritis-diet.html