Healing Arthritis: Can Gut Health Improve Arthritis?
Video Transcript:
Hi everyone. Welcome back to our channel.
Gut Health And Arthritis
You may have already heard about the importance of gut health for our overall health, or perhaps you're familiar with the discomfort and limitations caused by arthritis, but have you ever considered that they may be connected?
The relationship between your gut health and your joint health is more profound than you may think.
Whether you're living with arthritis already or just trying to be more proactive about your health. Understanding how gut health and arthritis are connected can empower you to make decisions about your diet and your lifestyle that can help improve your overall quality of life.
So in today's video, we are going to review what arthritis is and talk about how it is connected to your gut health, what the role of nutrition is in managing your symptoms, and how nurturing your gut gut health can be key to managing your arthritis symptoms.
Hi, I'm Katie Bailey. I'm a gut health dietician at Oswald Digestive Clinic, where we help individuals improve and resolve their bothersome gut issues like gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, and more.
If you'd like to learn more about gut health, I'll link our free guide 5 Ways to Improve Your Gut Health here. Okay, let's get started on today's topic.
Arthritis And Gut Health
Among adults over the age of 65, it's estimated that about 47% have a diagnosis of arthritis.
Now, arthritis is inflammation of the joints, and it's an umbrella term for many different conditions that affect the joints and the surrounding tissues.
Although there are multiple types of arthritis, we're just going to focus on two of them today.
Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Osteoarthritis is inflammation of the joints due to everyday wear and tear, and it's most often associated with age.
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the body's tissues resulting in inflammation of the joints.
Symptoms of both types of arthritis include joint pain, stiffness, reduced mobility, and swelling.
The causes of arthritis can be anything from age-related degeneration, joint injuries, and autoimmune responses.
It's not just about what's happening locally at the joints, but systemic inflammation plays a significant role as well.
Our microbiome and the integrity of our gut can influence systemic inflammation in turn affecting arthritis.
Our gut is home to trillions of microbes, and these make up our gut microbiome.
These microbes have a significant role in our immune function. Digestion, as well as our mood and research is showing that an imbalance in our gut microbiome known as dysbiosis, could contribute to systemic inflammation and potentially trigger or aggravate arthritis symptoms.
An imbalance in our gut microbiome can lead to something called leaky gut, which is when our intestinal lining becomes permeable or leaky and allows unwanted or undigested food particles, harmful substances and toxins and bacteria to enter into our bloodstream.
Once in the bloodstream, this triggers an immune response, which can result in systemic inflammation affecting the joints.
The bacteria in our gut produce things called short chain fatty acids, which help to decrease that inflammation in the gut.
So when we don't have enough of that beneficial bacteria, that's going to reduce the production of those short-chain fatty acids.
Therefore, maintaining a healthy gut microbiome can be crucial for managing your arthritis symptoms.
Arthritis Diet
When it comes to managing arthritis, nutrition can be a powerful tool. The foods you consume can either soothe that inflammation or make the inflammation worse.
A diet rich in anti-inflammatory foods can help reduce that inflammation.
Therefore, reducing your arthritis symptoms while a diet high in processed foods and excess sugar and on healthy fats can cause more inflammation and make your symptoms worse.
So focusing on a balanced diet full of antioxidant rich fruits and vegetables, whole grains, proteins and healthy fats can contribute to better joint health.
Omega 3 fatty acids found in fatty fish and walnuts and flax seeds have been shown to help decrease inflammation due to their anti anti-inflammatory properties.
Also, having a balanced diet is going to aid in a healthy weight, and this is crucial for your arthritis management as well, because excess weight is going to put additional pressure on your joints.
So when it comes to managing arthritis naturally, there's a few things that we can do.
The first thing, like we kind of already touched upon is diet.
Making sure you're focusing on an anti-inflammatory diet full of whole nutrient dense foods, including foods that are rich in your omega fatty acids as well as herbs like ginger and turmeric when you can, because these all have anti-inflammatory properties that can help reduce the pain and the swelling associated with arthritis.
Arthritis Foods To Avoid
You want to limit those highly processed foods, the excessive sugars and unhealthy fats and alcohol because these all promote inflammation and make your symptoms worse.
Healing Arthritis
Number two is you want to participate in regular low impact physical activity, which is going to help keep your joints flexible and strong.
It's going to improve your range of motion, strengthen the muscles around your joints and aid and weight management, and then lastly, nourishing and promoting your gut health.
So you can take or eat prebiotics and probiotics, whether through foods or supplements.
This is going to improve your or balance out your microbial diversity and prevent leaky gut, and then also some gut healing or soothing supplements, things like licorice root, aloe vera juice, slippery elm, and marshmallow root.
These can all help soothe and heal that intestinal lining and help with leaky gut as well as reduce inflammation.
To wrap up our topic for today, the connection between your gut health and arthritis cannot be overstated.
Ensure that you are eating a well balanced whole foods nutrient dense diet while really trying to limit those foods that are going to trigger inflammation.
Add in foods that are going to help promote your gut health and commit to regular low impact exercise.
By nurturing a balanced and a healthy microbiome, you can potentially decrease systemic inflammation and manage your arthritis symptoms.
The suggestions that I mentioned today are very general, so if you're interested in learning more about your gut health specifically or you just want some assistance in getting started, we would be more than happy to help.
If you liked this video, please hit the like button and subscribe for more nutrition videos.
I hope that you found this video helpful and informative, and if you're interested in working with our clinic, you can click this link to schedule an initial appointment.
We do take insurance and you can find more information about that on our website.
Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye.
If you'd like to explore any of this information further or obtain an individualized nutrition plan, you can schedule an initial appointment at our clinic. We also take insurance and some of our clients get full coverage, which is great.
Or you can just start by downloading our FREE GUIDE: 5 WAYS TO IMPROVE GUT HEALTH
