Arthritis: Over 60 Recipes and a Self-Treatment Plan to Transform Your Life. Marguerite O.B.E. Patten

and pain and, as a result, you find yourself moving less. Muscles that were once firm and strong begin to weaken from lack of use. Not burning off calories as quickly as you once did, you find yourself gaining a bit of weight. The problem of wakeful nights becomes compounded because the exercise you now avoid is an important part of getting the body ready for sleep. Overtime, arthritis begins to dominate your life, and you find yourself in a slow physical and emotional cycle of decline.

      The above scenario is not inevitable, however. You can prevent it happening to you. By changing your diet and lifestyle, it is possible to regain a sense of physical and mental wellbeing. Arthritis leads to negative changes in your life: The Eat to Beat Arthritis Diet is your guide to the positive changes needed to overcome them.

      Unfortunately, many arthritis sufferers never find a way of overcoming the debilitating symptoms of the disease. They may seek help from their doctor, and find that the medication they are prescribed causes unpleasant side effects such as stomach pain. Others try various forms of alternative therapy only to find them ineffective. In the end, they all too often submit. After all, they may reason, everyone who reaches a certain age must suffer from some form of aches or pains. As time goes by, their condition gets worse. All too soon the activities they once enjoyed – like playing with the grandchildren, gardening, or keeping up with a favourite hobby – cause too much pain to bear.

      Don’t give in to arthritis. By learning to select and enjoy the foods that uniquely suit you, and by following the lifestyle advice in this book, you can continue enjoying life. Think positive. Be positive. Make the changes that release you from the negative cycle of arthritis.

      The Eat to Beat Arthritis Diet is based on a simple, three-part strategy to healing and health:

      

Know your enemy (in this case – arthritis);

      

Know how to defeat your enemy (gain control over arthritis in seven weeks); and

      

Enjoy life.

      The details of this strategy are outlined in the chapters that follow, but here is a brief summary of what is involved.

      Know your enemy

      Strip away the mystery of arthritis by understanding what it is and why it occurs. When an illness is diagnosed and given a name by a doctor, it has power. It is the unknown, and we are its victims. By learning something about an illness, or disease, and why it makes us suffer, we gain control. Knowledge replaces doubt, and hope replaces fear.

      The basic facts outlined in Chapter 2 demystify arthritis. More detailed information is presented in the section of the book called ‘Questions and answers about arthritis’. Additional help is also provided by a glossary, a selection of good food tips and a list of helpful resources (this includes a number of websites for those of you with access to the internet).

      Know how to defeat your enemy (gain control over arthritis in seven weeks)

      This book is your guide to seven weeks that can change your life. Once you understand an illness, you can build a strategy to defeat it. If its total defeat is not possible, you can still find ways to minimize its symptoms and learn to live a brighter, fuller life.

      In the early parts of this book you will learn how to alter your diet and lifestyle to break the negative cycle of arthritis. You will discover why good nutrition can rebuild failing tissues, block pain and revitalize aching joints. It will also become clear why certain foods should be avoided, and how everyday favourites – like tomatoes and aubergines (eggplants) – can cause joint pain and swelling.

      You are unique, and your requirement for food is unique. Not only do you need to know which foods you should eat, but how they can be balanced to help you live a full and active life – despite having arthritis. This is explained in Chapter 3, where you will find an outline of the basic rules of nutrition, and information about how the substances in food affect your health. The basic rules of nutrition hold for everyone, but the amounts of individual nutrients you require for optimum health are not the same as those needed by others.

      During the seven weeks of this diet, you will learn how to listen to your body and recognize when specific foods are doing harm. Simply by avoiding all foods containing wheat and all drinks containing caffeine, many arthritis suffers find their lives changed forever.

      If all this is beginning to sound a bit too restrictive – take heart! In Part Two you will find a long list of foods you can eat. And to help you enjoy a delicious (and very modern) approach to cooking with these ingredients, Marguerite Patten has devised over 60 easy-to-prepare recipes.

      Marguerite’s recipes are a vital part of this book. In them she not only explains what to cook and how, but also shares her own experience with the diet. Day by day, step by step, she takes you through the diet and discusses why she chose one ingredient over another. These personal insights give invaluable information and encouragement as you begin to experiment with a style of cooking that is fresh and tasty as well as healing and healthy.

      Enjoy life

      This is the third proclamation of the Eat to Beat Arthritis Diet. Unfortunately there are no simple recipes to help you with this part of the programme. Some suggestions are offered later on, but no one can prescribe what is best for you. Just remember:

      

The glass of life is half full – not half empty.

      

Smiling has been scientifically shown to have a positive effect on mood and the sensation of pain.

      

Exercise relaxes you, loosens joints and muscles, and helps lay the groundwork for a good night’s sleep.

       Chapter 2 Know your enemy (understanding arthritis and its causes)

      The costly epidemic of arthritis

      ‘People ignore arthritis both as public and personal health problems because it doesn’t kill you.’ So said Chad Helmick, a medical epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. He continued: ‘But what they don’t realize is that as Americans work and live longer, arthritis can affect their quality of life and eventually lead to disability.’ According to the FDA Consumer (May–June 2000), who quoted Dr Helmick, the current annual cost of arthritis to the U.S. economy is nearly $65 billion – a sum large enough to have about the same impact as a moderate recession.

      Arthritis can strike at any age, and the number of arthritis sufferers increases each year. During a person’s lifetime, arthritis is more likely to restrict activity than cancer, diabetes or heart disease. World-wide, arthritis inflicts a terrible cost. In the United States alone, currently about 42 million people are afflicted by chronic forms of arthritis: according to the Center for Disease Control, that number will rise to 60 million by 2020. More than 11 million of those people will be crippled badly enough to be classified as disabled. And the U.S. is not an exceptional case – the social and economic impact of arthritis in the United States is mirrored throughout the Western world.

      Why should more people suffer from arthritis today than in the past? And why do various forms of arthritis appear to be increasing at a greater rate in Westernized countries than in the rest of the world? Many experts believe the answer must be related to our lifestyle and diet.

      When