Foods to avoid with arthritis

The symptoms for arthritis can be painful and can be crippling to one’s life so it would be best to find out the foods to avoid with arthritis. While there may be a lot of known foods that can trigger the pain in the joints and the inflammation, there are still a lot of foods out there that can trigger the pain since each individual that are afflicted with this disease can have varying different food allergies that may trigger the symptoms.

Foods to avoid With Arthritis

Common foods to avoid with arthritis are those that are high in fat both the saturated fat and the trans fat. Both of these fats would not do the body any good. Saturated fats are mostly found in butter, lard, palm oil, coconut oil, eggs, red meat and chocolates while the trans fats are found in hydrogenated oil, margarine and in most of our favorite snacks like cookies or crackers.  Saturated fats would form naturally in the foods unlike the trans fat which are only formed when oils are transformed into solid forms to enhance the flavors of some foods. Both of these fats would shoot up one’s bad cholesterol level while simultaneously lowering the level of good cholesterol in the body. Trans fat is the most dangerous among the two since it causes inflammation in the arteries when the C-reactive protein levels in the blood are increased and it would also hinders the insulin form binding in the blood, these elements in the trans fat will eventually be the cause that the immune system will weaken. The types of fats would also increase the weight of the patient which is bad for the joints of the patient with arthritis.

Vegetables that are of the nightshade variety are considered foods to avoid with arthritis although most doctors don’t agree; the nightshade variety would include eggplants, cape gooseberry, tomatillos, cucumbers and ground cherries.

Another type of foods to be avoided are those that have gluten in them because this could trigger an autoimmune disease that would aggravate the swelling of the joints like  grain products, rye, wheat, barley, bulgur, semolina, wheat germ and wheat grass. Milk and dairy products would also contain gluten and is therefore to be avoided as well. 

The salt and sugar intake of the arthritic patient is to be closely watched because sometime one would not be able to monitor the salt and sugar intake because these two are the key ingredients to most dishes in every meal. Too much intake of alcohol and caffeine should also be avoided since these are generally not good for the body even if you don’t have arthritis, so common sense would tell you to avoid it especially if you are afflicted with arthritis. Foods that are high in oxalic acid could hinder the vitamins and minerals absorption like the body’s absorption of calcium,  potassium and magnesium. Oxalic acid in high quantities like those in some beaches and anti-rust could prove toxic for the body.