There is clash between orthodox opinion and the ideas that flourish in the community at large. Many books and magazine articles over many years have championed nutritional approaches to solving arthritis. The main problem with common diet advice is that book and magazine articles often get the story mixed up and good ideas are entangled with bad ideas. Food ideas are also mixed up with commercial hyperbole and diet advice often ends up to be contradictory and  confusing. 

The withdrawal of Vioxx and related pain relieving drugs commonly used by arthritis sufferers was  a shock to doctors and patients alike. The drugs were vigorously promoted for the wrong reasons and had serious negative effects. While doctors are attempting to reassure their patients that the medical approach to arthritis is not fundamentally flawed, we think the medical approach needs a complete review.

Institutional advice ignores a body of scientific evidence that should be of great interest to the arthritis patient and his or her MD. We urge the reader to spend the time required to understand good scientific hypotheses which lead to practical, common sense approaches to diet management in arthritis. In the pages found at this web site, the key concepts are discussed. 

Inflammation: With any chronic pain in the musculoskeletal system, the underlying problem is often inflammation in connective tissues. Inflammation is usually produced by populations of immune cells that occupy the affected tissues. Inflammation may show up diffusely, be localized to tendon or ligament attachments, or occur in and around joints.

Joint involvement is diagnosed as inflammatory arthritis. There are several distinct patterns. A group of related joint and connective disorders have been called rheumatic diseases. All these diseases are immune-mediated, and all are expressions of inflammation in connective tissues. Inflammation damages joints and surrounding tissues resulting in loss of function and deformities. Variations in the patterns of these diseases reflect the many possibilities for immune damage to disturb and distort structure and function. Severity ranges from mildly painful, chronic activity to drastic, disabling or life-threatening disease.

Simple allergic arthritis is a definite entity that is often not recognized as a food allergy. Typically, a dramatic, acute, and painful swelling develops in one or more joints asymmetrically. The joint inflammation is usually brought on by eating a food, either an unusual food eaten for the first time or sometimes a regular food eaten in excess. This presentation is similar to and often confused with gout. Any food can cause allergic arthritis. Coffee, beef, pork, milk, eggs, and wheat are the most common food triggers. A wheat gluten-triggered mechanism has been studied in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Wheat ingestion is followed within hours by increased joint swelling and pain.

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