I have osteoarthritis. I was diagnosed in November of 2018. I was walking with a cane because of pain in my left hip. I mentioned it on FaceBook and one of my friends wrote that she has osteoarthritis and so does her mother. One of the things that she the most found helpful was eliminating nightshades from her diet. I will write about nightshades later in this post. The reason that nightshade foods can worsen osteoarthritis (OA) is that they are inflammatory and OA is an inflammatory reaction of the body. I would like to point out that different people have different reactions to nightshades and how well eliminating them from one's diet will help with arthritis varies from person to person.
So, I started eliminating nightshades and keeping track of the pain in my hip. There did seem to be a correlation. I decided to try completely eliminating the nightshades for a month. That helped enormously with the hip pain. I no longer needed the cane on a daily basis. I also started taking a curcumin supplement, another recommendation from that friend, which has some science to back it up.
I did not wish to give up all nightshades all of the time. I would say the most common nightshades that people eat are potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, and chili peppers. So, I decided to try re-introducing the various nightshades, one at a time, so I could find out if some were worse than others. I really like chili peppers. Also, chili peppers contain capsaicin, which is antiinflammatory So, I tried those first.
The chili peppers didn't seem to bother me at all. I made sure to eat chili peppers every day for a week, still no reaction. So, I tried other nightshade foods, one by one and kept track of reactions. I searched the internet to see if I could find out which part of the foods have the most glycoalkaloids. Glycoalkaloids are the toxin in nightshade foods that causes inflammation. With potatoes, most of the solanine (a very common glycoalkaloid in nightshades) is in the skin and particularly if the skin has turned green. There is also a lot in other parts of the potato plant, like leaves and stems. So, I tried potatoes with no skin. That seemed okay too. I tried them with skin and it was not good. I'm still figuring out how this all works for me. It turns out that how much potato I eat also seems to make a difference, as well as how much of other nightshades I eat at the same time or within a day or two. Also, I find that with baby potatoes, the skin doesn't bother me If anyone is interested, I will be happy to describe what I do with various nightshade foods to try to cut down on the amount of glycoalkaloid toxins that I eat. I am now at the point where I almost never have any pain in my hip, only "twinges" once in a while and that's usually when I have eaten too much nightshade.
About nightshades, they are a group of plants, many of which we eat. The scientific name is Solanaceae, which is a family of plants. They usually contain a glycoalkaloid toxin. Some people tolerate those toxins better than others. Many nightshade plants are not food, for example here's one you may have heard of, deadly nightshade. Tomatoes contain both solanine and tomatine, another glycoalkaloid. I imagine that some other nightshade foods contain some other glycoalkaloid, but I don't know for sure.
en.wikipedia.org
So, I started eliminating nightshades and keeping track of the pain in my hip. There did seem to be a correlation. I decided to try completely eliminating the nightshades for a month. That helped enormously with the hip pain. I no longer needed the cane on a daily basis. I also started taking a curcumin supplement, another recommendation from that friend, which has some science to back it up.
I did not wish to give up all nightshades all of the time. I would say the most common nightshades that people eat are potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, and chili peppers. So, I decided to try re-introducing the various nightshades, one at a time, so I could find out if some were worse than others. I really like chili peppers. Also, chili peppers contain capsaicin, which is antiinflammatory So, I tried those first.
The chili peppers didn't seem to bother me at all. I made sure to eat chili peppers every day for a week, still no reaction. So, I tried other nightshade foods, one by one and kept track of reactions. I searched the internet to see if I could find out which part of the foods have the most glycoalkaloids. Glycoalkaloids are the toxin in nightshade foods that causes inflammation. With potatoes, most of the solanine (a very common glycoalkaloid in nightshades) is in the skin and particularly if the skin has turned green. There is also a lot in other parts of the potato plant, like leaves and stems. So, I tried potatoes with no skin. That seemed okay too. I tried them with skin and it was not good. I'm still figuring out how this all works for me. It turns out that how much potato I eat also seems to make a difference, as well as how much of other nightshades I eat at the same time or within a day or two. Also, I find that with baby potatoes, the skin doesn't bother me If anyone is interested, I will be happy to describe what I do with various nightshade foods to try to cut down on the amount of glycoalkaloid toxins that I eat. I am now at the point where I almost never have any pain in my hip, only "twinges" once in a while and that's usually when I have eaten too much nightshade.About nightshades, they are a group of plants, many of which we eat. The scientific name is Solanaceae, which is a family of plants. They usually contain a glycoalkaloid toxin. Some people tolerate those toxins better than others. Many nightshade plants are not food, for example here's one you may have heard of, deadly nightshade. Tomatoes contain both solanine and tomatine, another glycoalkaloid. I imagine that some other nightshade foods contain some other glycoalkaloid, but I don't know for sure.
