Nightshade foods and arthritis

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taxlady

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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. :w00t: 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.

 
i never knew or even thought things like potatoes could have an effect on arthritis or joint pain

thanks for the information
 
@taxlady, it sure sounds like you've done your homework on how these things work with your body, good going.
An anti-inflammatory diet is one that has a variety of vegetables and fruits, the more you replace meat/fish/dairy with veg and fruit, the more anti-inflammatory.
As inflammation goes down, aches and pains goes down and mobility will go up.
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Is it the seeds or peels of the tomato that causes more issue?
It does not seem to be the peel, but yes to seeds. I don't know about the gel that surrounds the seeds, but I am suspicious of it. I can usually eat not-large-amounts of passata and of tomato paste. Both of those have had seeds and skin removed. So, if there is a recipe that I really want to use that has canned tomatoes, I substitute passata. It works less well than I would have expected. I am guessing that it's the gel that passes through the strainer when they are removing seeds and skin.
 
Sugar in the diet is the 900lb gorilla for inflammation and has been known for decades. Plant compounds and carbs (sugar) is what you want to be mindful of. Glycation is a process where sugar molecules bind to proteins or lipids in the body, forming harmful compounds called advanced glycation end products (AGEs).

AGE's specifically target Interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein, Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) all which signal inflammation from all sugar sources. As well as ROS (reactive oxygen species) which are caused by the production of AGE's which actually muck with our DNA and our mitochondria basically kill cells and both of these are major influencers in aging. The SAD diet is a good example of these out of control and creating the health situation we now have.

These AGEs contribute to chronic inflammation and oxidative stress, go to google scholar if your curious about it as it relates to osteoarthritis or any other non communicable disease for that matter, because that is the main cause, and it all starts in the gut.

Basically keep refined carbs, ultra processed foods, refined seed oils and added sugars to very low levels. imo
 
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I opened that image in a new tab. I made it a fair bit bigger. It's very fuzzy, but I think it says "raw milk".

Ya' might want to avoid raw milk. H5N1 -- bird flu -- has made a crossover to dairy cows, which can only transfer it to humans through raw milk.

There have been very few cases of H5N1 crossing into humans, but I read today that 52% of them ended in death???

Anyone heard more about that?

CD
 
I have arthritis, too… but potatoes are my favorite food. I usually don’t eat the peel.

I eat a lot of nightshades but will experiment with limiting them.
 
I have arthritis, too… but potatoes are my favorite food. I usually don’t eat the peel.

I eat a lot of nightshades but will experiment with limiting them.
Is it osteoarthritis? I haven't heard about it doing any good for other types of arthritis, but I think that osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis.

I think it is well worth trying to find out if the nightshades aggravate your arthritis. If you find that they do, I can give you tips on how to get less of the glycoalkaloid toxin from some of the nightshade foods.
 
I have not noticed any difference in my RA with varying levels of consumption of nightshades.
 
Is it osteoarthritis? I haven't heard about it doing any good for other types of arthritis, but I think that osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis.

I think it is well worth trying to find out if the nightshades aggravate your arthritis. If you find that they do, I can give you tips on how to get less of the glycoalkaloid toxin from some of the nightshade foods.
Good question. It’s not rheumatoid arthritis, so I guess it’s osteo.

Knee replacements and a new hip soon.

But I will definitely take your nightshade advice (except maybe, potatoes)

Thanks for your helpful info!
 
I think it is well worth trying to find out if the nightshades aggravate your arthritis. If you find that they do, I can give you tips on how to get less of the glycoalkaloid toxin from some of the nightshade foods.

Yes. Any dietary change that might work is worth a try. If it doesn't work, nothing lost. But, if it does...

CD
 
Good question. It’s not rheumatoid arthritis, so I guess it’s osteo.

Knee replacements and a new hip soon.

But I will definitely take your nightshade advice (except maybe, potatoes)

Thanks for your helpful info!
Well, I think you should still try to find out if they bother your arthritis. Limiting the amount of potatoes helps. not eating any of the peel helps. Small potato types seem to have less solanine, the glycoalkaloid that is the toxin in 'taters. Also, green skin and sprouts have the most. I do eat potatoes, but not as much as before and always peel the big potatoes. Sometimes I scrape the skin off cooked fingerling potatoes, sometimes I don't.
 
Good question. It’s not rheumatoid arthritis, so I guess it’s osteo.

Knee replacements and a new hip soon.

But I will definitely take your nightshade advice (except maybe, potatoes)

Thanks for your helpful info!
Well, I think you should still try to find out if they bother your arthritis. Limiting the amount of potatoes helps. not eating any of the peel helps. Small potato types seem to have less solanine, the glycoalkaloid that is the toxin in 'taters. Also, green skin and sprouts have the most. I do eat potatoes, but not as much as before and always peel the big potatoes. Sometimes I scrape the skin off cooked fingerling potatoes, sometimes I don't.
I have not noticed any difference in my RA with varying levels of consumption of nightshades.
Yeah, as far as I know, it doesn't really make a difference with RA.
 
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