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Treat Degenerative Arthritis - Why
Arthritis Cells Attack Themselves (And what to do about it)
Autoimmune
diseases (like arthritis),
is a case where your immune system targets your body’s own tissue and destroys
it with inflammation,
and is understandably extremely interesting to medical scientists.
To
put it simply, why would such an otherwise sophisticated and well-constructed
body do such a stupid thing?
Scientists
from the Technical University of Munich have now explained the process whereby
this occurs in detail in a new study in the journal Cell Report.
And
this may lead to a clearer path towards a cure for arthritis.
Your
immune system must attack and remove everything it considers to be an abnormal
biological material. To do this, it uses T-cells to attack invaders, and also
to remove cells that have been damaged and that are identified as abnormal.
These
T-cells are incredibly strong and often use inflammation
to kill invaders.
The
only problem? If the cells in your joints, for example, have been slightly
damaged by a relatively normal biological process, such as oxidation or by harmless
bacteria, these T-cells will destroy your joints until nothing remains of it.
This
is where regulatory T-cells, or Tregs, step in. The job of Tregs is to inhibit
unnecessarily strong responses by these T-cells and to block unnecessarily
strong inflammation.
In
other words, when your T cells begin to destroy your joints
because your immune system incorrectly labels them as harmful, these Tregs stop
the immune overreaction, curb the inflammation,
send the T-cells away, thereby saving your joints.
If
you have a condition like arthritis,
however, then these Tregs are clearly not doing their job, and this is the
puzzle that scientists are still trying to solve.
For
some reason, particularly in the case of severely inflamed tissue, Tregs lose
their identity and stop operating as the brake system that the immune system
often needs, particularly in the misinterpreted cases. As such, the authors of
the new study used mice to investigate why this happens.
When
they observed severely inflamed tissue in mice, they noticed that a protein
called Blimp1 was sometimes present and sometimes absent.
When
it was present and active, the Tregs worked. When it was absent, the Tregs lost
their identity and remained inactive.
When
they deliberately removed Blimp1 from the mice’s inflamed tissue, the mice
developed something akin to an autoimmune disease.
Not
only did the Tregs lose their abilities to inhibit the immune response, but
they also seemed to develop properties that made them prone to inflammation
promotion.
This
is partly why many autoimmune diseases are genetic, as it is a genetic process
that activates Blimp1.
This
is groundbreaking research, as it is the first time that scientists have
managed to get a glimpse of why the immune system is so dysfunctional in
autoimmune diseases like arthritis.
Unfortunately,
it will still be years before this discovery translates into any form of
functional medication for arthritis.
Till then, we will have to rely on diet and other lifestyle changes to tackle inflammation.
Treat Degenerative Arthritis - Stress
And Arthritis – Strange Pain Connection
Around
30% of those who suffer from arthritis pain also report a high level of stress.
This is almost three times the stress level of the general public.
That’s
because stress triggers your immune system, which causes inflammation, which of
course worsens arthritis.
A
new study published in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy reveals that people
with arthritis can almost eliminate their pain and stress level at the same
time.
The
researchers recruited 241 people with joint pain, some of whom went on to
develop rheumatoid arthritis and some of whom did not.
They
measured the levels of psychological stress of these participants with the
Mental Health Inventory and the Perceived Stress Scale at the beginning of the
study and during follow-up visits.
They
measured their systemic inflammation with a blood test for a pro-inflammatory
chemical called C-reactive protein.
They
also measured their joint inflammation using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
scan of their wrist, finger, and toe joints.
At
the beginning of the study, 12% of people with joint pain suffered from high levels
of psychological stress.
This
was no higher at that point for those who ended up developing arthritis than
those who didn’t. This indicates that stress doesn’t actually cause full blown
arthritis.
The
moment arthritis was diagnosed, their stress levels increased until 31% of them
experienced high stress.
So
being diagnosed with such a serious disease increased stress and therefore joint pain.
Luckily,
during the first year of treatment, stress levels dropped again, until only 8%
of arthritis patients experienced extreme stress.
So,
interestingly, by beginning to do something about their arthritis, the
participants experienced lower stress levels than before they were diagnosed.
This was true even if the traditional medical system had no cure.
Treat Degenerative Arthritis - The
Weird Arthritis and Weight Loss Connection (different from what many might
think)
One
of the problems with arthritis is that because it limits people’s mobility,
they move less and are therefore at increased risk of weight gain.
This
often leads to severe disability.
So,
the obvious solution is to lose weight. Right?
Not
so fast, says a new study recently published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.
This study investigated the link between weight and disability due to
arthritis.
At
the beginning of the study, researchers expected to find that the most obese
people were the most likely to suffer from arthritis that was related
disability. They assumed that weight loss would be an effective treatment to
halt the development of this disease.
They
analyzed the medical data of 23,323 people with rheumatoid arthritis in the
National Data Bank of Rheumatic Diseases, and of 1,697 arthritis sufferers in
the Veterans Affairs RA registry.
Disability
was measured according to the participant’s responses on the health assessment
questionnaire.
When
their details were first entered into these databases, it was found that those
people who were obese would be substantially more likely than those who were overweight
to suffer from arthritis-related disability.
In
subsequent years, it was found that those who were obese were also much more
likely than those who were overweight to develop such disabilities.
Where
the study became surprising, however, was with the role of weight loss.
If
obesity is the problem, then weight loss is the solution. Right?
Wrong.
Oddly
enough, those who shed their weight did not benefit at all, and still
experienced an increased risk of disability compared with people who were never
obese or overweight to start off with.
The
reason is that if you don’t reverse your arthritis (and the traditional medical
system has no idea how), you can’t get your mobility back even if you lose
weight.
Watch
these 2 videos for more ideas to treat degenerative arthritis –
The
study also shows that it is important to lose weight before you experience too
much disability.
The problem is that most diets and workouts don’t work because
they ignore the “third element of weight loss.” I’ll explain this third element here and show you how to use it to put your weight loss on autopilot…
This
post is from the Arthritis Strategy Program. It was created by Shelly Manning,
a former arthritis sufferer and a health
consultant.
A Brief Background on
the Author
Like you, Shelly
Manning also suffered from arthritis, particularly osteoarthritis. This was due
to her weight and desk job. Her condition eventually took a toll on her
relationship with her (former) husband.
It was when she went
to Hong Kong that she met Janerdquo, an old woman who owned the restaurant
where she ate. Janerdquo supposedly offered her a bowl of a weird-smelling
soup, which helped ease her joint pain. She ate there each day for 10 days
until she was completely healed from arthritis.
Shelly Manning
decided to research this natural remedy and to create a step-by-step treatment
plan to others who are suffering from different types of arthritis, such as
gout, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and psoriatic
arthritis.
That’s why she
created “The Arthritis Step By Step Strategy.” According to her claims, this
unique strategy will get rid of joint pain and stiffness, repair your damaged
joints, and treat the underlying cause of your arthritis.
Shelly teamed up with
Christian Goodman, the owner of Blue Heron Health News, a publishing company
that aims to help people to take responsibility for their own health by using
natural health alternatives to reverse arthritis in fingers and knees naturally.
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