3 Lifestyle Tips for Joint Health

You’re not alone if you find that a little activity (shoveling maybe?) brings along some knee pain? Or if not your knees, is your hip is reacting? Perhaps in your case it’s shoulder pain. Wherever the joint pain, we can help with our number one recommendation for relief … nutrition to reduce inflammation.

3 Tips to Reduce Inflammation and Joint Pain.

1. Skip Sugar
   Sugar and inflammation are directly related, no way around it. If you want your joints to feel better, sugar has to go. One nutrition counseling client used an apt metaphor: noticing when she eats sugar, she gets “that shards of glass feeling” in her knee. After diligently cutting out sugar, her “shards of glass pain” is a thing of the past.
2. Choose Healthy Fats 
   Fat lubricates joints, helping with joint pain. Choosing the right kind of fats is key. Avocado, raw or dry roasted nuts, olives, olive oil, butter, avocado oil and coconut oil are all healthy choices. Refined oils such as canola, corn, vegetable, soybean, and cottonseed oil are heavily processed, don’t provide much if any nutrient value and promoteinflammation. Getting a serving of healthy fats each time you eat also helps to stabilize blood sugar, which will help to prevent those pesky cravings.
3. Replace Processed Carbohydrates with Vegetables
   Simply put, processed carbs = inflammation. Cereal, bread, pasta, crackers, baked goods are all considered processed carbohydrates. (Processed foods like these break down into sugar in your body … are you noticing a theme?) Basically, anything that doesn’t come from the ground, a bush or a tree is considered processed. Yes, vegetables are carbs too but they provide a wide variety of nutrients and antioxidants helping to reduce inflammation. Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, Brussel sprouts) specifically contain sulforaphane. A study found that sulforaphane slows down the destruction of cartilage in joints associated with painful and often debilitating osteoarthritis¹. Plus, cruciferous veggies aid in detoxification.

If you’re suffering from chronic joint pain and this all sounds overwhelming , we encourage you to consider making a virtual appointment with one of our Nutritional Weight & Wellness nutritionists or dietitians. It often takes some detective work to come up with the right eating plan and combination of supplements to help reduce your specific inflammation and heal the tissues throughout your body.

References:

1. Rose K Davidson, Orla Jupp, Rachel de Ferrars, Colin D Kay, Kirsty L Culley, Rosemary Norton, Clare Driscoll, Tonia L Vincent, Simon T Donell, Yongping Bao, Ian M Clark. Sulforaphane represses matrix-degrading proteases and protects cartilage from destruction in vitro and in vivo. Arthritis & Rheumatism, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/art.38133

2. Stohs, S. J., Ji, J., Bucci, L. R., & Preuss, H. G. (2018). A Comparative Pharmacokinetic Assessment of a Novel Highly Bioavailable Curcumin Formulation with 95% Curcumin: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Crossover Study. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 37(1), 51-59.