Rheumatoid Arthritis: It's the food!

I had an email query about Rheumatoid Arthritis, so off to PubMed I went.

From https://www.webmd.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/ss/slideshow-ra-overview

I found Controlled trial of fasting and one-year vegetarian diet in rheumatoid arthritis.

"Fasting is an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, but most patients relapse on reintroduction of food."
This suggests that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an ongoing process, triggered by something that's consumed.

"After an initial 7-10 day subtotal fast, they were put on an individually adjusted gluten-free vegan diet for 3.5 months. The food was then gradually changed to a lactovegetarian diet for the remainder of the study."
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I'm thinking Gliadorphin-7, as per Wheat, Constipation, Ischaemic Heart Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, Schizophrenia and Autism.

This suggests that RA is caused by peptide chains passing through loose "tight junctions" in the gut, triggering an (inappropriate) autoimmune response. For ways to improve gut integrity, see Cow's milk, Schizophrenia and Autism.

BCM-7 can be avoided by drinking A2 milk. Most cheeses are made from A1 milk, so should be avoided. Swiss cheeses like Gruyère and Emmental are probably made from A2 milk, so suck 'em and see.

To reduce inflammation in joints, consuming oily fish may help, as an adjunct to prescribed anti-inflammatory medications.

Continued on Fibromyalgia: It's the food, again! (probably).

Keep 'em tight.

Wheel nuts? Nope!

Image from https://suppversity.blogspot.de/2012/11/shedding-some-light-on-the-leaky-gut.html

I'm referring to Tight Junctions. As mentioned at the end of Wheat? Oh, dear! , 10% of people who are healthy enough to donate blood have gut walls permeable enough to let gliadin fragments pass into the blood.

Tight junctions are important, as they keep the contents of the gut inside the gut and out of the blood. If you read Food Combining: What's THAT all about?, you'll see that during digestion, proteins are broken down into individual amino acids & very short peptide chains*. Amino acids & very short peptide chains are small enough to pass through tight junctions. Peptide chains longer than about 3 amino acids are too big to pass through. See also Physiology and Immunology of Digestion.

Carbohydrates are broken down into monosaccharides, which are small enough to pass through. Disaccharides are too large.

Fats are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids. Glycerol is small enough to pass through. Fatty acids and other fatty molecules such as Vitamin D, Co-enzyme Q10, Vitamin K2, curcumin, berberine etc are transported across.

The consequences of having loose junctions are not good. Chains of amino acids that aren't supposed to pass through the gut wall enter the body and produce an antibody response, e.g. Beta-CasoMorphin 7 and/or Gliadorphin 7. That in itself isn't a problem, unless amino acid sequences in the chains match amino acid sequences in certain parts of the body.

Diseases of autoimmune origin such as Coeliac disease (gut), Eczema (skin), Dermatitis herpetiformis (skin), Psoriasis (skin & joints), Sjögren's syndrome (mucous membranes), Cerebellar ataxia (Purkinje cells in the brain), Multiple sclerosis (myelin sheaths of nerves), Type 1 Diabetes (pancreatic beta cells), Rheumatoid arthritis (joints), Asthma (lungs), Lupus erythematosus (various), Autoimmune thyroiditis (thyroid), LADA (pancreatic beta cells) etc are caused by antibody responses inappropriately attacking parts of the body. Autoimmune diseases can also occur after bacterial & viral infections.

The other day, I found Immune response to dietary proteins, gliadin and cerebellar peptides in children with autism.

See also Stronger Intestinal Barrier May Prevent Cancer in the Rest of the Body, New Study Suggests.

So, how do we keep 'em tight? See Vitamin D.
See also Dietary Fat Can Modulate Intestinal Tight Junction Integrity.
See also Shedding Some Light on the Leaky Gut <> Exercise Connection. Plus: 20+ Things You Should or Shouldn't Do to Protect and Restore the Integrity of Your Intestinal Wall.
See also Sulphation and Autism: What are the links? A good source of sulphate is Epsom Salts.



In other news....
I had a phone call from mum's GP this morning. Having read my evidence, he's agreed to test mum's serum B12, 25(OH)D and Calcium and give her supplements accordingly. He's also happy with me giving mum a Ketogenic diet and will also advise the nursing home to exercise mum as often as she is able. Result!

I put four cubes of liver pâté out for Sooty & Sweep (I don't know which one is which as they're identical) and a Magpie swiped two of them. We also have seagulls. I put the other two cubes out of sight in a box.


So far, so good!

P.S. What fuel can be extracted from decomposing seagulls?
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Wait for it...
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Petrel! (From Petrol Direct, a joke site in case anyone's wondering).