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I stopped eating animals 25 years prior to going vegan, which I did five years ago, coinciding with my transition back from bike racer to hockey player. On the ice, hockey players rely on their wrists for shooting, stick handling and passing so I depended upon the brace my doctor gave me after the second break. When I removed dairy from my diet, I started noticing the soreness that I felt in my wrist for several decades had diminished. It felt so good that I stopped wearing the brace.
[Also read Soy Freely: Alleviating Fears and Shooting Down the “Bro Science” About This Therapeutic Plant Protein from Rick Scott.]
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The first time that I broke my wrist was in a 1983 on-ice collision when
I was an 18-year-old hockey player. I broke my thumb near the same wrist a
couple years later in a bike race. When I broke the wrist again in 2007 in
another bike race, the orthopedic doctor looked at the x-ray and exclaimed
“Look at all that arthritis!”
As a veteran athlete, I assumed that you forever feel the aches and pains of
a lifetime of injuries as we age, typically in the form of arthritis when it
comes to broken bones and joint injuries. I taped my right wrist in the gym
for years and wore a brace on it when I went back to playing hockey shortly
before my 50th birthday. I lived with the soreness daily and I certainly
never expected the miracle healing that occurred when I ditched dairy from
my diet.
I stopped eating animals 25 years prior to going vegan, which I did five
years ago, coinciding with my transition back from bike racer to hockey
player. On the ice, hockey players rely on their wrists for shooting, stick
handling and passing so I depended upon the brace my doctor gave me after
the second break. When I removed dairy from my diet, I started noticing the
soreness that I felt in my wrist for several decades had diminished. It felt
so good that I stopped wearing the brace. To my surprise, the discomfort
that I had lived with in my wrist since the mid-1980s disappeared completely
and the only thing that changed is that I stopped consuming dairy products.
During a recent podcast interview, I shared my story with listeners, and it
made me curious about how dairy impacts arthritis. Is what I experienced
normal or a rare exception? I reached out to Dr. Micah Yu, a rheumatologist,
board certified internal medicine doctor and a certified lifestyle medicine
doctor who practices at The Institute of Plant-Based Medicine in Newport
Beach, California, to get the science behind my remission. Dr. Yu has
autoimmune arthritis and with a whole-foods, plant-based diet, he was able
to significantly improve his condition without medication. The form of
arthritis that impacted me was osteoarthritis.
“Osteoarthritis is a wear-and-tear arthritis that can be seen in the
elderly, athletes and people from the military as well from all the trauma
they sustain. What we are finding out is that in osteoarthritis, even though
it is not an autoimmune arthritis, there is an inflammatory component that
we are discovering now at the bone,” said Dr. Yu, who has been called into
action to serve COVID-19 patients.
“When you eat a whole-foods, plant-based diet, you are avoiding inflammatory
foods such as dairy, processed food, refined sugar and red meat, which can
be inflammatory. Patients find meat to be inflammatory as shown by arthritis
symptoms versus a patient that goes on a whole-foods, plant-based diet.
Certain types of oil can be very inflammatory as well, especially if you
cook it above the boiling point. Everyone is different, but a whole- foods,
plant-based diet can be very therapeutic for people when they have
arthritis.”
With the coronavirus threat, we have become keenly aware of the need to
maintain a strong immune system. Another reason to bolster the immune system
is that it plays a role in fighting inflammation.
“Where the immune system is connected is that 60-70% of the immune system is
at the gut. In order to help the immune system send anti-inflammatory
signals, one of the key steps is fiber. Fiber is anti-inflammatory. That,
along with short-chain fatty acids, sends out anti-inflammatory signals at
the gut, which then travel to the rest of the body through the blood stream
and the lymphatic system. That is why a whole-foods, plant-based diet is so
therapeutic,” said Dr. Yu while offering an admonition against high-fat
diets.
“A high fat diet is inflammatory. It can induce inflammatory signals at the
area of the gut and send inflammatory signals throughout the rest of the
body.”
Let’s be clear: not everyone will be cured from osteoarthritis like I was
just by ditching dairy and adopting a whole-foods, plant-based diet, but it
is common to experience varying degrees of relief. It is important to
consider that arthritis is impacted by factors beyond food, according to Dr.
Yu.
“Lifestyle factors also play a role such as stress levels. How much does
someone exercise? How much do they sleep? Do they smoke? Do they do drugs?
And how is their emotional well-being? How much radiographic damage is there
on the x-rays? There is an inflammatory component to osteoarthritis. If you
cut out most of the inflammatory foods such as processed food, refined sugar
and dairy, then you can give yourself a head start in improving your
symptoms of osteoarthritis. The x-ray findings are not going to get better,
meaning the damage of joints is not going to get better, but if you calm
down the inflammation, then you can possibly have less pain in the area.”
Eager to further explore and understand the connection between inflammatory
foods and arthritis, I hit the internet where I came across this passage in
regards to omega-3 fatty acids and athletics (Simopoulos AP. Curr Sports Med
Rep. 2007 Jul; 6(4):230-6) that concludes “A plant-based diet, free of dairy
foods, is high in omega-3 fatty acids, which help reduce inflammation and
swelling, and low in omega-6 to help produce the optimal 2:1 ratio of
omega-6 to omega-3.”
Dr. Yu said, “I always recommend that my patients eat fruits, vegetables,
legumes, whole grains, lentils, beans, quinoa and flaxseeds for omega-3
fatty acids. With fruits and vegetables, you want to focus on the fiber.
It’s like the most important nutrient out there for inflammation. The
phytonutrients in the fruit and vegetables are very healing and
anti-inflammatory. Spices can be very beneficial as well: turmeric, ginger
and green tea.”
Athletes tend to be vigilant about reducing inflammation from the stress and
strain of athletic activity because of its adverse effect on athletic
performance. However, athletes and nonathletes alike benefit from reducing
inflammation caused by food. What should we be eating to fight inflammation?
Foods rich in antioxidants. That means spices as mentioned in the preceding
paragraph; dark leafy greens like kale, spinach and collards; select fruit
such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, oranges and cherries; nuts,
tomatoes and beans. According to a post on the Switch4Good site, pomegranate
juice, a known inflammation fighter, has been shown to “increase Olympic
weightlifting performance by 8%, decrease how hard training felt by 4%, and
decrease muscle soreness by 13%!”
Dr. Yu urges patience when it comes to using “food as thy medicine and
medicine as thy food.” Even in my case, the arthritis did not disappear
overnight. It was over time that I noticed the benefits of my dairy free,
plant-based diet.
“You’re not going to see any impact if you drink turmeric, ginger or green
tea once a week. With food, you’ve got to think long-term gains. It’s not
like medicine where you take a pill and an hour later the pain is gone.
That’s not the way food works. It’s a long process, a day-to-day consistency
and habits formed over a long period of time that can be very beneficial.”
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We began this archive as a means of assisting our visitors in answering many of their health and diet questions, and in encouraging them to take a pro-active part in their own health. We believe the articles and information contained herein are true, but are not presenting them as advice. We, personally, have found that a whole food vegan diet has helped our own health, and simply wish to share with others the things we have found. Each of us must make our own decisions, for it's our own body. If you have a health problem, see your own physician.