Rheumatoid-Arthritis-Today.com

Why Were These Drugs Approved?

camsalis — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:29:10 +0000

This article is by Martha Rosenberg, originally published at OpEdNews.com. It reiterates a warning against supposed bone-strengthening drugs, like Fosomax, previously published here. This is another warning that we dare not ignore.

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by Martha Rosenberg

Like Vioxx, Merck’s expensive “super aspirin” that caused thousands of cardiovascular events before being recalled, Merck’s Fosamax, the first bisphosphonate bone drug, flew out of the FDA with only a six-month review.

And like Vioxx, the true dangers of the drug class (that includes Fosamax, Boniva and Reclast) only surfaced after being “tested” on the guinea pig known as John Q Public.

Now, people are asking why the bone drugs were ever approved.

Like Vioxx, there were early indications of Fosamax’s risks but they did not prevent wide marketing. Merck received 1,213 adverse-effect reports soon after the drug’s approval, which included 32 hospitalized patients with adverse esophageal effects, 17 with “severe” effects, and two who were “temporarily disabled,” reported the New England Journal of Medicine. One woman who took Fosamax and only remained upright for 30 minutes not 60 minutes as directions say, had to be admitted to the Mayo Clinic with “severe ulcerative esophagitis affecting the entire length of the esophagus” and had to be fed intravenously.

And there were other safety signals. Bisphosphonate patients were found to be at greater risk for osteonecrosis of the jaw–death of the jawbone–after in-office dental procedures. They were found to be at greater risk for irregular heart beat, intractable pain and at double the risk of esophageal cancer, according to medical reports.

Then, in 2010, after millions of women were taking the widely advertised bisphosphonates, studies revealed they sometimes caused the very fractures they were supposed to prevent!

Thanks, Big Pharma by Martha Rosenberg
“Long-term use of osteoporosis drugs linked to hip breaks,” said USA Today . “Increased risk of fracture with bisphosphonates,” said the Associated Press. “Drugs to build bones may weaken them,” said the New York Times, who reported that the thigh bones of patients on bisphosphonates have “simply snapped while they were walking or standing,” after “weeks or months of unexplained aching.”

Soon after the FDA met in 2011 to determine how long patients could safely remain on the drugs (assuming they were safe at all), an article in New England Journal of Medicine suggested that 90 percent of women who have been getting bone scans, devised by Big Pharma to sell bone drugs say published reports, did not need them. Oops.

In April, a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found patients on bisphosphonates were at higher risk of developing the eye disorders scleritis and uveitis. And this week the FDA announced that the bisphosphonates may stop working after a while. The FDA’s analysis “found little if any benefit from the drugs after three to five years of use,” reported the New York Times.

As many as 60 percent to 70 percent of current users “would be candidates for stopping the drugs after three to five years,” reports the Times –a diplomatic way of saying they were taking drugs for naught.

Why did the FDA rush to approve bone drugs which turned out to have links to cancer, jawbone death, heart problems, intractable pain and eye disorders? Drugs which actually cause fractures and apparently cease working while patients take them? Why did it foster Merck’s apparent marketing plan of making quick money before risks surfaced? See: Vioxx?

New RA Drug Tofacitinib – The String Runs Out

camsalis — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:01:19 +0000

An FDA panel approved another new pharmaceutical to defeat the immune system, for use as a last resort by Rheumatoid Arthritis patients who don’t respond to other drugs. The drug, tofacitinib, made by Pfizer, is expected to earn the company billions, just as some of their other blockbusters, like Viagra and Lipitor, are coming off patent and will in the future be generic and affordable. We can probably assume there will be no shortages, as there has been with the inexpensive generic methotrexate.

Tofacitinib belongs to a new class of drugs called JAK inhibitors which cripples the immune system through a slightly different mechanism than previous biologics which have all been TNF inhibitors. TNF stands for ‘tumor necrosis factor’, medical shorthand that means the drug disables the body’s ability to fight cancer. Does that sound like something you want to do to yourself?

There are several reasons for the never ending stream of new immune-suppressing drugs.

1: Although people with RA constitute only 1% of the population, the drugs we use are extremely expensive and extremely profitable for the manufacturers. The endless ads that Big Pharma runs in prime time are a testament to the big bucks it makes from these ‘blockbuster’ drugs that we erroneously have been lead to believe are necessary to our well being.

2: Almost half of us will get no relief from any given drug, so we keep trying until we find one that works. This fact alone keeps chemists busy. Anytime they introduce a new drug they know before its even approved that there is a huge market that will not benefit from it and will need to try something else. In the words of a Pfizer VP:

“The (rheumatoid arthritis) patient population needs additional treatment options and Pfizer looks forward to working with the FDA on next steps.”

3: The human body develops a tolerance for RA drugs used too often, so doctors increase the dose to get the same effect. With the extremely dangerous drugs used for RA, there is eventually a limit to how much risk can be allowed, even by a medical system trained to dispense risk with wild abandon. When no longer effective, the drug goes into the dust bin and another one is substituted, until the string runs out, no more drugs are available that aren’t absolutely lethal, and we are left to control the disorder on our own. Lucky for us, that is so do-able.

There was a lot of speculation that this drug would not be approved because it has caused many problems for patients in clinical trials. Those problems include raising cholesterol levels, liver damage, serious infections, cancer and a number of deaths. As with all drugs, the side effects listed by the manufacturer include only those found so far. They are not necessarily the only ones caused by the drug.

Despite concerns about safety, it was approved by the FDA panel as a second line drug not to be prescribed until other drugs have failed. Since all biologics are destined to fail as the body recovers its own equilibrium, it is likely to be prescribed to you until you no longer rely on Big Pharma to solve a problem that is completely within our control.

Whatever you are taking now will eventually become useless and your physician will look in his bag for yet another substitute. As the safe drugs vanish, the ones that are left get more and more dangerous.

Rheumatoid Arthritis is caused by food allergies, as all of us who have become healthy again by changing our diet can attest. There is simply no reason that you have to use lethal drugs to feel good.

For those interested, the links to more information are below.

Tofacitinib: FDA Panel Backs Rheumatoid Arthritis Drug

US Panel Seen Backing Pfizer’s Arthritis Drug Hope (access required sign in)

UPDATE 1-Doctors back Pfizer arthritis pill despite deaths

Heart Attack Without Heart Disease: The Chickens Come Home

camsalis — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:36:14 +0000

Something strange and ominous is happening to young people, especially women but also to lesser numbers of men. They are dying of sudden heart attacks (acute myocardial infarction, AMI) without the classic symptoms of heart disease, chest pain or blocked arteries. They die quickly, as though struck by lightning.

Every year since accounting began, there has been a tiny number of persons in the U.S. who died abruptly for no apparent reason. In fact, the annual list of mortality statistics issued by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics included ‘unknown cause’ as a category, along with heart disease, cancer, stroke, and so on, until about 10 years ago. It was about that time that I called a statistician at NCHS to ask if the number dying for unknown reasons was going up. His answer was a definite and frustrated ‘Yes!’

Federal biostatisticians go to considerable lengths to determine a cause for every death on U.S. soil. People are simply not allowed to die without a good reason. And yet, despite their best efforts, there was a rising number of deaths that no one could account for.

NCHS appears to have solved the problem and now everyone who dies can be placed in an acceptable category. Since each death involves a heart that stops beating, deaths for ‘unknown’ reasons have become deaths from ‘heart attacks.’

A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association sounded an alarm and made the evening news: increases in the number of heart attack deaths between 1996 and 2004, occurring in young, healthy and symptom-free women has shocked the medical community. Deaths from ‘unknown causes’ remain and now happen often enough to have the attention of physicians, researchers and the government.

In the dry but riveting language of a medical journal:

The risk among [young] women relative to men … is not … explained by differences in MI severity, comorbidity, or treatment. ….
…
The reasons for this age-dependent disparity in mortality [for younger women] are not clear.

Translation: We haven’t a clue what is going on.

The statistics include only those who die of sudden heart attack in the hospital. Abrupt cardiac failure also happens to men and women who die outside of the hospital and to unknown numbers who look sudden death in the face but survive. It occurs to those with heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity or diabetes, and the elderly, and those ‘contributing factors’ are blamed for the death even when they are not responsible. According to NCHS, death certificates listing Acute Myocardial Infarction as the primary cause actually occur almost 30% more often than officially tabulated.

The total incidence of sudden death that can be attributed to nothing beyond heart failure is a complete mystery. The young and symptom-free may be the tip of the iceberg.

The occurrence of acute myocardial infarction among the young and even the very young, was first documented in 2001. The CDC cited an increase of 281 deaths, or 30%, to women ages 15 to 34 between 1989 and 1996. Fifty-six of those were younger than 25.

By 2008 the American Heart Association reported that ‘heart disease’ kills about 16,000 young women annually and accounts for 40,000 hospitalizations in young women.

And in 2009 the Archives in Internal Medicine reported that

roughly 9,000 American women under age 45 have heart attacks each year…

In a just over a decade, the almost inconceivable had become common place.

Parallel to the rise in sudden, symptom-free, death, other things were happening in the 1990’s.

Allergies, a defense mechanism mounted by the immune system, were on the march. Several sources estimated that allergies had doubled or tripled in the past 20 years, and that included only those easiest to count, like the relatively benign hay fever or the lethal anaphylaxis.

Allergic reactions can be induced by, literally, anything, from the food we eat, to the medicine we take, to the air we breath and more. Symptoms are often vague and general, making it impossible to get an accurate fix on their prevalence. Was that stomach upset caused by an allergy or was it bad food? Was the headache due to an allergic reaction or stress? Was the death due to a sudden allergy-induced heart attack or was it something else?

The medical community has yet to come to grips with the fact that allergic reactions can cause absolutely any random symptom, disorder or consequence, limited only by the tolerance and ingenuity of the human body. But they know for sure that there is a lot more of it than there used to be.

Also beginning in the 1990s, the ever-increasing, legal, adulteration of the U.S. food supply went into high gear.

We got used to the long list of unpronounceable words on the ingredient labels of processed food: the assortment of modifiers, stabilizers, flavors, fillers, colors, preservatives and whatever added to food.

Now, packages of meat were treated with gas to preserve the surface appearance and therefore the shelf life. The gasses also made their way into the food and us, the FDA’s magical thinking notwithstanding.

No testing or labeling required.

Food was now irradiated to more efficiently eliminate bugs and bacteria so that processors weren’t bothered providing safe and sanitary food. Radiation damages the structure and nutritional content of the food.

No testing or labeling required.

Nanoparticles, which research is showing to be extremely toxic to everything from sperm growth to brain cells, is entering the food supply and migrating into our bodies from sunscreen, treated fabric and more.

No testing or labeling required.

But there was an even more unsettling change at the grocery store. Many basic foods, the stuff that had successfully sustained life for eons, was being altered through the genetic modification of their DNA into something never seen in nature. The vast majority of soy, sugar beets, canola, and corn crops are today genetically engineered. They are processed into those unpronounceable food additives, and can be found in virtually every kitchen in America.

Genetic engineering means that we now ingest foods that are themselves pesticides, herbicides, and may contain transgenic DNA from other animal species. Does the human body give us a pass? Or are there serious, as yet unidentified, consequences?

Although nature doesn’t allow cross breeding between species; although many studies have found serious health issues with GM food; although GM food has been largely rejected in Europe, in the U.S. it remains unlabeled, untested and ubiquitous.

The American media keeps U.S. citizens in the dark about the genetic modification of the food supply, a subject that has roiled the populations of other countries. Monsanto fights continuously to suppress the results of negative tests and to prevent the labeling of genetically modified food.

“If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.” – Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto, 1994

We are the unknowing guinea pigs in an international Monsanto-FDA experiment, with media collusion and no records kept.

This article is dedicated with sadness to the family of Lauren P., 1984-2011, and all others who have buried loved ones without knowing why.

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In addition to increases in sudden heart attack, asthma and allergy, other conditions have been increasing since the mid-1990s and the advent of genetically modified food.

Autism: In 2000, the CDC reported a rate for autism that was 6.7 per 1000 children 8 years old. In 2012 they reported a rate of 11.3 per 1000, an increase of almost 70% in little more than a decade.

Foodborn illnesses: ” Figures released at the end of 1999 showed a two to ten-fold rise in food-related illnesses compared with 1994.”

Cancer: “A recent study … revealed clear links between one of the world’s biggest selling herbicides, glyphosate, (Monsanto’s Round-Up) to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma” a form of cancer.

Dementia, Liver Failure. Obesity: Linked to high fructose corn syrup, a genetically modified sugar substitute.

Superweeds: One of the effects of the mass application of Round-Up Ready GM seeds.

The Anemia of Rheumatoid Arthritis

camsalis — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:16:40 +0000

We get a check up at the doctor’s office. Lab results show that the iron circulating in our blood, our hemoglobin, is a bit low. We’re anemic.

Iron is an important nutrient that plays a key role in transporting oxygen through the bloodstream to all body tissues. It is a necessary and complex mineral.

Your doctor may tell you, as mine did me, that you need to take an iron supplement. According to those who study iron, anemia, and chronic disease, this is exactly the wrong advice.

The ‘anemia of chronic disease’ (ACD) is also known as the ‘anemia of inflammatory response’ and goes hand in hand with Rheumatoid Arthritis and many other autoimmune conditions. Due to a complicated metabolic process, iron supplements make it worse.

In one of the human body’s miraculous, natural, adjustments to danger, the anemia of inflammatory response is in fact a protective mechanism that the body uses to limit the amount of iron available to potential harmful bacteria and cancer cells, which need iron to flourish, just like all other living things.

From the Iron Disorders Institute:

When the body senses a potential threat, iron gets shuttled to ferritin to be contained so that the harmful invader cannot get to the iron. Just enough iron is made available to make red blood cells but no surplus is left to nourish harmful pathogens.

… a person with ACD [due to Rheumatoid Arthritis] will experience a modest decline in hemoglobin. … Hemoglobin values will generally reach a low normal range of 9.5–10.5 g/dL and remain there … until the underlying condition is cured.

… Taking iron pills for anemia of chronic disease could be harmful, even fatal.

…. The greatest risk for harm is mistaking anemia of chronic disease for iron-deficiency anemia and allowing the patient to take iron pills.

…. There is no treatment for anemia of chronic disease except to address the underlying condition. Iron supplementation is inappropriate in these patients because the added iron can become free to nourish bacteria and cancer cells.

Bottom line: Iron is not a freebie. It can be a dangerous metal in our bodies and is closely regulated by our metabolism. Our low-normal anemia is standard for those of us with Rheumatoid Arthritis and other inflammatory conditions and should not be treated with iron supplements.

However, the body reacts differently to naturally occurring iron in food than it does to iron from pills. Below is a list of foods that will provide the unprocessed iron our bodies need.

Note that foods enriched with iron, like many breads and cereals, count as supplements and not as sources of natural iron:

Red meat – the most easily absorbed form of iron
Egg yolks
Dark, leafy greens (spinach, collards, kale, broccoli)
Dried fruit (prunes, raisins)
Mollusks (oysters, clams, scallops, other shell fish)
Beans, lentils, chick peas and soybeans
Liver
Artichokes
Blackstrap mollasses

If you eat iron-rich foods along with foods that provide plenty of vitamin C, your body can better absorb the iron, especially iron from non-animal sources.

A more technical description of the mechanics of the anemia of inflammation can be found at the links below.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anemia_of_chronic_disease
http://www.irondisorders.org/anemia-of-chronic-disease

Are You Taking the Right Biologic? No One Knows

camsalis — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:19:51 +0000

An article in the journal Archives in Internal Medicine focused on something important to those of us with Rheumatoid Arthritis and others for whom biologics are prescribed: There have been no ‘head-to-head’ trials of biologics, where drugs are tested against each other to compare outcomes and determine which drug works best.

The result is that new drugs reach the market with little reliable evidence of their effectiveness relative to existing treatments, leaving prescribers to rely on “biased indirect comparisons to choose the best treatment for their patients.”

Randomized control trials are the gold standard of drug research. But these trials are conducted in such a way that the pharmaceutical company, and us, never find out if one drug is better than another.

Here’s how they do it:

They assemble a group of willing research subjects, people who give their permission to be guinea pigs for the drug company. Typically, these folks are told that half will be given a placebo – a sugar pill – and the other half will be given the drug being evaluated, and no one will know who took what until the study is completed. This is the way a randomized control trial works.

The study ends and – lo! – the group receiving the drug did better than the group that was taking nothing but a sugar pill.

Is that what we need to get the best results? No. What we need is to know which drug works best with the least side effects, but as long as drugs are not compared with each other that information will remain secret and unavailable.

When you begin taking Biologic A, neither your doctor nor anyone else knows whether it is more or less effective or harmful than Biologic B.

Are you sure you want to put your health in the hands of the pharmaceutical companies?

Can I convince you yet that your health is a do-it-yourself project and that you are entirely up to the task? The research and our own experience should be enough to convince us that Rheumatoid Arthritis is a food sensitivity disorder that we can control through our diet.

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And now a word about clinical trials. Personally I would never advise my friends or family to take part in one.

The thing you have to remember is that a clinical trial is actually done as much for marketing as to scientifically locate a working drug. The purpose of a drug trial is to find one that can be marketed as effective, not to find the best drug for the condition, which is why no one knows if you are taking the best biologic.

Drug trials are NOT designed to help you, the participant. You are the guinea pig that will help determine if the drug is safe enough and effective enough to be used for anything.

A requirement of your participation in a clinical trial is your signed consent form. With your signature, you release the pharmaceutical company for any damages you suffer, including death.

The bar for a passing a clinical trial, which allows the drug to be marketed, is astoundingly low. It simply has to work better than a sugar pill placebo, and placebos improve a persons health about 1/3 of the time, all by themselves. So if a drug improves the life of people, say, 35% of the time, the trial has been a success and the drug goes on the market and your doctor can give you a prescription for it.

Is it any wonder that 40% to 50% of people will not benefit from any given biologic? And that’s not even counting the rapid tolerance we develop for a drug, which is why the pharmaceutical companies continue to bring new biologics to market– to replace the ones that are no longer effective.

Back to fixing ourselves by changing our diet …

Methotrexate Doesn’t Stop Damage from Rheumatoid Arthritis

camsalis — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:55:03 +0000

The Journal of Arthritis and Rheumatism reported last month that even if you are taking MTX, are symptom free, and have been pronounced in remission by your physician, you can still sustain joint damage. In the past we’ve talked about the corruption of the word ‘remission’ as it is now applied to RA. Remission used to mean a spontaneous, although possibly temporary, disappearance of symptoms. These days it means an improvement of symptoms while the person is taking drugs, and the remission goes away when the drugs are discontinued.

The now-official fact that joint damage can progress while we are taking immune system suppressors is a warning that we need to look elsewhere for permanent relief. That’s what this blog is about.

RA is not an Enbrel or MTX deficiency. It is an allergy to certain foods that our confused immune systems believe are enemies. We can heal ourselves by cooperating with our bodies instead of fighting a battle with nature that we are destined to lose.

If you would like to see the article go to this link : Joint Damage Can Progress Even in RA Remission

The Ten Most Dangerous Drugs in America

camsalis — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:30:06 +0000

Automobile accidents are no longer the most common cause of accidental death in the U.S. That distinction now belongs to legally prescribed drugs, both prescription and over the counter.

A number of drugs on the list of horrors are used for pain control by those of us with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

We’re used to thinking that drug deaths are caused by back alley deals in smack, crystal meth or other illegal substances, but not true. The real killers are the ones prescribed legally by doctors, “… approved by the government, manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and sold to the consumer as ‘medicine.’”

In 2008, the latest year for which complete statistics are available, 41,000 people died of inadvertent drug poisoning. As the author of the study says, these deaths are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to mortality caused by modern chemistry, approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and usually classified as painkillers, sedatives or stimulants. It doesn’t include suicides, drug interactions, allergic reactions or deaths where drugs were an unidentified cause.

The common denominator among the most deadly drugs is their ability to create addiction and dependency.

Please note: All drugs, without exception, are poison and can result in deadly harm to the human body. A common cause of drug induced death is liver failure, when the liver is overwhelmed by a struggle to clear pollution from the blood and is poisoned itself. If you become ill with nausea, vomiting, or other symptoms of unknown cause, you should immediately stop taking all medication until you are well again, and then re-evalute your drug regimen.

NAUSEA IS A COMMON EARLY SYMPTOM OF LIVER FAILURE AND DARE NOT BE IGNORED.

Here is a list of drugs commonly associated with poisoning and emergency room visits in 2009, excerpted from AlterNet. Note the number of those drugs that have been prescribed for you or that you bought over-the-counter at your local drug store.

The Top 10 Most Dangerous Rx Drugs in America

This list of brand name and generic drugs was compiled from the Drug Abuse Warning Network’s (DAWN’s) database of emergency room visits in 2009, including drug poisonings that lead to both deaths and survivals.

1. Xanax (alprazolam) 112,552 (benzodiazepine class)

2. OxyContin (and other oxycodone drugs) 105,214 (opiate class)

3. Vicodin (and other hydrocodone drugs) 86,258 (opiate class)

4. Methadone 63,031 (opiate class)

5. Klonopin (clonazepam) 57,633 (benzodiazepine class)

6. Ativan (lorazepam) 36,582 (benzodiazepine class)

7. Morphine drugs 31,731 (opiate class)

8. Seroquel (quetiapine) 29,436 (antipsychotic class)

9. Ambien (zolpidem) 29,127 (sedative class)

10. Valium (diazepam) 25,150 (benzodiazepine)

Rheumatologist: “I pushed alot of … poisons.” Didn’t help patients.

camsalis — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:26:55 +0000

This physician, quoted below from a medical journal, is wow’d by the massive changes that have occurred in the treatment of RA in the past 10-20 years, meaning the increasing use of biologics. Most fascinating is his statement that standard practice in earlier years was ‘poison.’

Does it make you wonder what the current reliance on biologics will be called in the future?

He also repeats the currently popular medical dogma that biologics induce remissions. In the past the word remission meant that symptoms disappeared spontaneously. Rheumatologists today say that the vanished symptoms typical of remissions can be the result of a drug and last only as long as the patient takes the drug – and as long as the drug is effective.

That’s like saying that taking an NSAID for a strained muscle puts the strain in remission. The damage is either there or its not. Conditions like a muscle strain can be temporarily disguised by pain medication but until the muscle heals itself, there is an ongoing problem.

We’ll have to dissect the warping of the word ‘remission’ as applied to Rheumatoid Arthritis in another post.

If you go to the link below (you will have to register with Medscape) be sure to read the responses this doctor generated. Interesting.

Wow… have things changed in RA!

Nathan Wei, MD, Rheumatology

When I first started practice in 1981, I pushed alot of gold, penicillamine, and other poisons I’m too embarassed to mention. Procedures like lymphapheresis and total nodal irradiation were written about. Our patients still didn’t do that great.

MTX was an improvement but biologics really changed the game.

Remission is expected now. In fact, if I have a patient where I don’t get at least a partial remission, I think I’m doing something wrong. I’m terribly disappointed.

Testing for Food Allergies ??? Not So Much.

camsalis — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:50:24 +0000

Because research has shown for decades that Rheumatoid Arthritis is a disorder caused by food sensitivities, (also called ‘allergies’ or ‘intolerances’) we who deal with RA every day would like to know how to identify those evil-doers as quickly and easily as possible, and yesterday, please. Finding out for ourselves what is causing our problem takes dedication, a Long Time, and can be most frustrating. It seems like there should be an easy test that would answer all our questions about the foods we should avoid and make our lives Simple Again.

Well, the bad news is that there isn’t, but its not for lack of trying. All manner of skin and blood tests have been developed to isolate the markers for symptoms caused by food, and a some of them are for sale on the internet by people who should know better.

The basic problem is the complexity of our bodies. The tests are simple. Our bodies are not.

If you use medical testing to find your own food intolerances, you should be aware that the tests will always identify foods that may be causing trouble. After the test, you will indeed get a list of foods to avoid. The problem is that the food testing does not produce reliable results and chances are very good that your list will be inaccurate.

None of the tests now being used is valid to answer our question: What foods should I avoid?

The good and bad news is that we are in control and can do it ourselves. The fix is not quick or necessarily easy but it is do-able, has guaranteed results, and is healthy. Unlike pharmaceuticals, it comes without a single death threat.

The information below comes from a website called ‘WholeApproach.com’, which seems to have pretty good information in general but I especially liked their take on tests for food allergies. Plus, the references listed are excellent.

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Food intolerances may be severe and can be either immediate or delayed. They can take from several hours to several days to appear. This delay can produce confusion in the identification of which foods are responsible for the problem.

Within the medical community, there is little recognition of intolerance and delayed allergic reactions except within the environmental medicine field.

The list of potential symptoms from exposure to food allergies and intolerances are surprisingly diverse [I would say innumerable]. Take a look at the list below to see if you recognize any of these symptoms in yourself.

Possible Symptoms Of Food Allergies:
• Blackouts
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Insomnia
• Depression
• Impaired comprehension (brain fog)
• Neuralgia
• Depression
• Aphasia (inability to find words)
• Anxiety
• Mood swings
• Impaired coordination
• Hallucinations
• Disorientation/confusion/dyslexia
• Respiratory Problems
• Dizziness
• Violent behavior
• Hyperactivity
• Irritability
• Skin Problems
• Circulatory Problems
• Hormonal Imbalances
• Gastrointestinal Symptoms

[Rheumatoid Arthritis]

Leaky Gut Syndrome and the birth of an allergy

Foreign substances stress the already fatigued immune system and can also result in the development of food allergies. …. If particles of a specific food are repeatedly leaked into the blood stream, your body will see it as a troublesome invader … and will develop a memory of the food. Your immune system will now have specific antibodies ready to attack the next time it encounters the substance. Whenever the particular food is eaten, the immune system is triggered into defensive mode and we experience symptoms of intolerance or allergy.

It is for this reason that a hypoallergenic, four day rotation diet is recommended. Eating foods less frequently, can reduce the potential for the immune system to develop defenses against them.

Testing for food allergies

Elimination Diets [This is the one that works]

The rotation diet (a food is only eaten once every four days), the food diary (every food item consumed is recorded in a diary, along with symptoms) and the two-week elimination test (foods are systematically reintroduced after a two week abstinence) are all examples of elimination diets. These tests are slow and require a strong commitment from a patient. The main advantages of this type of approach are the ability to connect a specific allergen with a specific symptom and the ability to conduct the test at home, at no charge.

The four day rotary/elimination diet provides not only a diagnostic tool but an approach to treatment. Once CRC is resolved, most people can tolerate many more foods than they could during their acute illness.

Skin Test

The skin test involves applying a drop of antigen to the skin surface after pricking or scratching it. The results are then observed. A skin reaction indicates a typical allergy. The reaction is only caused if IgE antibody levels are high there will be a histamine reaction. Since over 80% of food allergy and chemical allergies are non-IgE mediated, this test is not conclusive.

RAST

Radioallergosorbent testing (RAST) is a highly specialized blood test to uncover IgE antibody allergic responses. It is not appropriate for food allergies, but useful for inhaled allergies. The test can produce 20 percent false positive and 20% false negatives and is very expensive.

Cytotoxic Testing

This is a blood test for foods. Live white blood cells are mixed with individual food antigens. A reaction to the combination indicates the presence of a sensitivity. This test is expensive and can show false negatives of food that has not recently been consumed. The skill of the technician reading the slides is crucial.

Pulse Test

The pulse test is done for one food at a time, usually after a fast (allergists use anywhere from a four hour to a four day fast). The pulse is counted every twenty minutes for an hour after exposure. If the baseline pulse reading increases or decreases by 20 or more beats per minute after exposure, an intolerance is presumed.

Electro Dermal Screening

Involves registering the patient’s response to the electromagnetic frequency of foods, inhalants and other environmental substances. A probe is used to direct a response signal into a specific acupuncture point on the hand or foot. The response is then displayed on a corresponding computer. This approach has a comparatively high accuracy rate. The accuracy is based on the technician’s skill and the quality of the equipment. False negatives may be registered if the patient has not recently been exposed to a specific substance.
Antigen Leukocyte Cellular Antibody Testing (ALCAT). This is a blood test based on the incubation of serum and white blood cells with a food or mould impregnated disc. Evidence of significant changes in cell size and numbers are indicators of sensitivity.

Patch Test

The antigen (for contact allergies) is placed on a patch applied to the skin for 24 to 28 hours and reactions are noted.

Provocative Neutralization Test

A dilution of the antigens tested are administered in drops under the tongue or by injection.

Tips to help you unravel some of your allergy related mysteries:

The investigation of potential health stressors* (allergies or intolerances) that may cause symptoms as minor as a sniffle or as life-threatening as anaphylactic shock can be a mind-boggling process indeed. There are a number of factors that will prove helpful to keep in mind as you work through your personal allergic mysteries.

Too much of a good thing?

The frequency with which you eat a food can affect whether you have a reaction to it or not. Some foods may be tolerated if eaten infrequently (every 4-14 days). The more often you eat it, the more likely it is to cause a problem.

Cooked or Raw?

You may tolerate a cooked food while the same food eaten raw can produce symptoms, or vice versa.

Become an avid label reader and ask before you eat!

You may think you are allergic to Chinese noodles or something in them but in fact you may be allergic to the MSG in the sauce. Hidden additives can be as much a problem as the foods themselves. Learning about dangerous additives and where to look for them is key. When eating out, ask your server to help you check for potential allergy hazards in your food. And don’t forget your reading glasses when you go to the grocery store!

Agrichemicals, packaging and processing

Pesticide-residues or irradiated foods may cause reactions in some people. Organically grown foods that are not sprayed or treated may be well tolerated while their conventionally-produced counterparts cause serious discomfort. Use organically grown foods in their most natural state with as little packaging as possible to reduce the potential for reactions.

Also, packaging additives may be made from allergenic substances such as cornstarch used to powder cereal bags and milk cartons. Chemicals leached from the inside of a can or from plastic wrap may be an issue for you if you are severely sensitive. Again, eating foods in their most natural state is the most cautious approach.
Remember, you may have the same symptom in response to several kinds of food or a specific symptom for each different food. Keeping your reactions (both negative and positive) to foods recorded in your food diary is the best way to match specific allergens. Write down how you feel if a symptom develops even if you aren’t sure if it is related to your meal. The diary can also be a place to record your other investigations (supplement and cosmetic trials, chemical sensitivity concerns, etc.).

Recommended Reading:

Allergies, Diseases in Disguise by Carolee Bateson-Koch
Food Allergies Made Simple by Austin, Thrash MD and Thrash MD
Allergy Relief and Prevention by Jacqueline Krohn MD
Additive Alert produced by the Pollution Probe A Consumer’s Guide to Food Additives by Ruth Winters
The Safe Shoppers Bible by Steinman and Epstein
Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia and Environmental Illness by Future Medicine Publishing

“We Were Blown Away!”–Tea and RA

camsalis — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:29:02 +0000

As the healthy magic of minimally processed green tea has become better known, researchers have begun investigating another tea with even less processing and more anti-inflammatory properties: white tea. They can hardly believe what they are seeing.

Welcome back to the future. Tea is one of the ancient remedies used for millenia in other cultures, that is now being ‘discovered’ by Western medical research.

There are a number of kinds of tea available on grocery shelves, black, green, oolong, and, rarely so far, white. They come from the same plant and are classified according to the type and amount of processing. As we find with most plant-based foods, more nutrients are retained with less processing, although all teas are known to have health benefits.

It turns out that white tea is the earliest harvested, the least processed and retains the most anti-inflammatory properties. It also has the least caffeine.

Read this:

The researchers were blown away by exactly how well the white tea had performed. “We were testing very small amounts, far less than you would find in a drink,” Professor Naughton, …(a) specialist on inflammation, said. “The early indicators are that white tea reduces the risk of inflammation which is characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis and some cancers [especially colon and bladder cancers: editor] as well as wrinkles.”

And read this from the same article. It gives a ranking list of the effectiveness of the anti inflammatory properties plants studied by these researchers. (I never heard of some of those plants so I left them out.)

… other plants and herbs analysed also helped protect against the breakdown of both elastin and collagen. After white tea, … came rose water, green tea, angelica, anise and pomegranate.

Elastin is a property of the skin that gives way to sagging as we age. What this and other articles indicate is that tea can help prevent the appearance of aging.

When they say that tea protects collagen, they are talking about benefits to those with arthritis, especially rheumatoid and osteoarthritis.

Other benefits of tea published in medical journals include the following list created by a skeptic (!). We can only wonder what he’d have said if he were willing to acknowledge the magic of nature.

—– Cardiovascular. There is evidence that green [and white] tea might positively affect cholesterol levels, blood pressure and atherosclerosis. There’s some early evidence that regularly drinking green tea may reduce heart attack risk or atherosclerosis. ….

—- Cancer. … Early lab tests with white tea indicate it may protect against colon cancer in particular. ….

—- Bone and joint health. Early laboratory research indicates green tea could be beneficial in reducing inflammation related to arthritis and slowing cartilage breakdown. [He's talking about us and RA]. Some early data indicate that regular tea consumption might improve bone mineral density in older women.

—- Memory. … a recent [study] found that older adults in Japan who drank green tea daily showed less risk of memory difficulty, compared with those who didn’t drink tea regularly.

Just imagine what a non-skeptic might have said!

Other research has indicted that the properties of white tea may combat obesity and black tea may help regulate diabetes and green tea can forestall atherosclerosis based dementia. .

White tea is something we can’t find – yet – in the grocery store so we have to buy it online. White tea has the properties of black and especially green tea but in higher concentrations, so using white tea will be a good thing to do.

I have been using green and white tea for several weeks and I’m sold on it as a remedy for RA. I used to take Tylenol occasionally for minor stiffness. I find that if I drink green tea, I can do without even those few pills. I’m finding evidence also that it helps with weight loss, just as the research suggests. And, since there is a history of non-Alzheimer’s dementia in my family, I’ll use white tea as a prevention for that.

Please use tea extracts, like you buy in tablet form, carefully. They are concentrated and much stronger than tea drinks. For example, if you buy green tea extract (EGCG), be sure that you don’t take more than a few a day. It is possible to develop new allergies by suddenly overdosing on a food.

You may notice that little of the research mentioned above was done in the U.S. Once again, that is the result of a bias in funding. Pharmaceutical companies subsidize most university studies in American and they have no interest in investigating the properties of anything that cannot be patented. Our information about the magic of natural remedies will probably have to come from other countries for the foreseeable future.

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FYI: There is good evidence that witch hazel applied to the skin has virtually the same anti-aging effect as white tea.

Handling Drug Side Effects – Rheumatoid Arthritis Version

camsalis — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:59:38 +0000

It’s happened again. An acquaintance told me about his mother’s death which was attributed to pneumonia. What actually happened was that her prescription medication made her so sick that she vomited and aspirated, which means that she inhaled the gunk from her stomach into her lungs causing her lungs to fill with fluid. That allowed her death to enter the world of mortality statistics as pneumonia when the true cause — prescribed pharmaceuticals– remains hidden.

. . . sigh . . . .

Side effects are built into every drug we take, no exceptions. The side effects may seem minor, like insomnia or anemia, or we may know immediately that we’re in trouble.

Lethal side effects may occur suddenly and without warning, like the bleed-outs caused by aspirin and other NSAIDS or the liver failure associated with acetaminophen (Tylenol).

My suggestion for dealing with side effects is to stop taking the drugs. Why endanger your life when you can eliminate the inflammation of Rheumatoid Arthritis, and most likely other inflammatory autoimmune conditions, by changing your diet. Yes, it can take some effort, but it is free and will not kill you.

Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, are exactly the opposite. They cost a fortune and may kill you, as they have thousands of others, but taking a pill requires no effort.

You have to choose.

Until you have removed pharmaceuticals from your life, here are some suggestions for dealing with side effects from people who know a lot about drug side effects: the Arthritis Foundation, with my critique, of course.

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Here are some safe and workable suggestions for handling the side effects of NSAIDS:

–Take the medication with food.
–Take a once-daily NSAID in the afternoon or evening, instead of the morning.
— Avoid alcohol. Alcohol mixed with NSAIDs can increase gastric bleeding to even higher levels.
— Avoid taking an NSAID with another medication, such as a cold remedy, which could also contain an NSAID and increase your risk of ulcers.

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The suggestions below involve adding more drugs to a regimen that is already making you sick. Remember, the more drugs you take the better your chances for disaster. We should scoff at suggestions like these:

–Take NSAIDs with a drug that reduces stomach acid. These come in two types and include cimetidine (Tagamet), ranitidine hydrochloride (Zantac), esomeprazole (Nexium), lansoprazole (Prevacid) and omeprazole (Prilosec).

– Switch from an oral DMARD to an injected form. For severe problems, ask about anti-nausea and vomiting drugs such as granisetron (Kytril) or metoclopramide (Reglan).

– Add misoprostal (Cytotec) to reduce the risk of stomach ulcers and promote healing of existing ulcers. Misoprostol comes in a combination product called Arthrotec, which also contains the NSAID diclofenac sodium.

My Note: Research has shown that Diclofenac may be the most dangerous NSAID on the market. See other posts under the tab ‘Medical Headlines Translated’ on this site.

– Switch to celecoxib (Celebrex), a type of NSAID called a COX-2 that has less risk of stomach ulcers.

MY NOTE: Celebrex vastly increases the risk of heart attack, stroke and a serious allergic skin reaction called Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS). It’s relative, Vioxx, was withdrawn from the market and there has been talk of also withdrawing Celebrex and other COX-2 inhibitors like Bextra because of their danger. Less risk of stomach ulcer does not make a safe drug. Shame on the Arthritis Foundation for this suggestion.

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Side effect: Insomnia from corticosteroids and prednisone.
Solution:
— Take a once-daily dose in the morning.
— Avoid stimulants such as caffeine that exacerbate sleeplessness.

MY NOTE: Steroids are so dangerous, and so interfere with normal cell function, that they should never be used outside of a life-threatening emergency. Short term use of steroids can cause cataracts, glaucoma, high blood pressure, swelling of limbs, and fat redistribution on the body. Long term use can result in bone and skin thinning, diabetes, interfere with wound healing and can disable the the immune system and the adrenals, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

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Side effect: Dry mouth from antidepressants, narcotic analgesics
Solution:
— Moisten your mouth with sugar-free gum or hard candies, or by sucking on ice chips.
— Try saliva substitutes, such as Salivart, Xerolube or Glandosan.
— Avoid alcohol or alcohol-containing mouthwashes that can make dry mouth worse.

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Side effect: Mouth ulcers due to methotrexate

Solutions:
–Avoid salty or spicy foods or excess citrus fruits that can irritate ulcers
–Try topical pain relievers such as Oragel or Zilactin or ask your doctor or dentist about a prescription rinse or mouthwash to help ulcers heal.

Key to a ‘Cure’ for Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Food Diary

camsalis — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 14:00:37 +0000

A food diary, also called a food journal or a food log, is recommended for a long list of reasons. Food journals are often used to monitor nutrition (are you getting enough fiber? Vitamin A?) or, commonly, for weight loss to keep track of calories.

But it is also recommended increasingly to monitor disease activity. Web sites for Crohns Disease, kidney disease, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) , Ulcerative Colitis, acid reflux, Celiac Disease, Fibromyalgia, Diabetes, allergies, and more, are making the crucial connection between what we eat and our health.

Nowhere is that connection better established than with Rheumatoid Arthritis. An accumulating body of research as well as our own experience indicates clearly that Rheumatoid Arthritis is a disorder caused by food intolerance.

As discussed in other recent posts, the key to vanquishing RA is the rotation diet, eating any food no more often than once every four days. This eliminates the problem of low level reactions to minimally hazardous foods that build in our bodies until our immune system can no longer ignore them. The rotation diet gives our bodies the time it needs to clear the food molecules that disrupt our immune system before adding more of them.

The way to maintain a successful rotation diet is to maintain an accurate food diary.

Here’s how to do it:

To get started you’ll need a notebook, preferably spiral bound, that is small enough to carry in your purse or pocket, because you’ll need ready access to record immediately everything you eat and drink. Trying to remember what you ate sometime later will result in missed foods, defeating your purpose.

On each page of the journal, begin by recording the day of the week and date, how you feel upon arising, which joints are painful, and the medications you’ve taken that morning. As you follow the rotation diet, the day will come, quickly, when you no longer need heavy-duty pharmaceuticals.

Each time you eat during the day, list the approximate time (e.g., breakfast, morning snack, etc.) and write down every food, including brand names (for future investigation), beverages, and frying oils. Note any garnishes, condiments, toppings, or additives. Be as complete as possible.

At the end of the day, record any new areas of pain that have cropped up. It can take from 6 to 24 hours for a food sensitivity to show up in a painful joint. If you have pain in the evening that wasn’t there in the morning, it may mean that you ate something early in the day that is causing problems. If you ate something to which you are allergic late in the day, the pain will most likely show up the next morning.

The real purpose of the diet diary is to help you monitor foods eaten and when they were eaten.

The 4-day rotation diet will quickly eliminate RA symptoms caused by low levels of food intolerance, and that is most of them.

If you experience pain or fatigue while on the diet, it means that you have included a food to which you have a high level of sensitivity and it must be removed from your diet entirely. Rotating such a food will not solve the problem of an extreme allergy, although it will lessen its impact. Fortunately, such food sensitivities are few.

There are many examples of food diaries on the internet. The template that will work best for our purposes is this one:

http://www.mealsmatter.org/images/articles/mm_food_diary.pdf.

In the column labeled ‘notes,’ write down the joints that are giving you trouble. As you progress on your food rotation diet, you’ll have less and less need for that column, although you will always need to keep track of what you eat.

Until you try it, you won’t believe how good you will quickly feel by simply eating no food more often than every four days.   It works like magic. But you have to keep track of what you’ve eaten.

Rheumatoid Arthritis and Flares: The Real Story

camsalis — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:47:12 +0000

The collection of advice about RA flares found in a search of Google predictably misses the mark. What we call ‘flares’ can affect almost anyone with an autoimmune disorder and are well known to those with Rheumatoid Arthritis. They are a sudden increase in inflammatory symptoms, pain, fatigue, swollen joints, any or all of the above.

If you believe what you read in articles posted on Google and at the Arthritis Foundation, you will think that flares are an unpredictable act of God over which you are helpless. Since ‘experts’ on RA are all very well versed in pharmaceuticals, their advice is always the same: increase or change your meds until you regain control.

That advice is complete and undiluted hogwash.

It is especially disappointing coming from the Arthritis Foundation’s publication Arthritis Today which recently ran an article entitled Rheumatoid Arthritis Diet: RA and Food Allergies concluding: “A new study suggests that food allergies may be linked to RA, after all.”

Flares are predictable, and once you know how to predict them they are controllable, without adding more toxins, otherwise known as prescription drugs, to your body.

According to all evidence, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and very likely all other autoimmune conditions, is a food sensitivity disorder. Something, often stress, triggers our immune systems into believing that certain food molecules (antigens) are in our bodies to do us harm. Always anxious to guard us from danger, our immune system speeds into action to protect us from what it mistakenly believes are evil-doers, in the process causing our level of inflammation to sky rocket with predictable consequences. We feel awful.

The key to eliminating flares is to calm the immune system and over-the-top inflammation by adjusting the diet. A flare occurs in response to a new or different food we’ve eaten in the past few days that our immune system regards with suspicion. To eliminate the flare, we have to identify and stop eating the offending food. It takes three days for food molecules to clear the body but by the end of day 3 you will feel fine again, as long as you haven’t eaten something else that ticks off your immune system.

Everyone with RA who wants to treat the disorder naturally, instead of relying on life threatening pharmaceuticals, should begin by strictly limiting the diet or going on a fast (as discussed in the tab at the top: How to Fix RA), keeping a journal list of everything that goes into your mouth. In that journal you will also record how you feel the next day, specific joint by specific joint. Your journal will guide you to health by providing a road map of foods your immune system is trying to save you from.

Sooner or later, you will identify the foods that your body really, really hates which trigger your flares. Then, unlike an act of God, they become not only predictable but avoidable. If I, for example, cut too many corners or eat something I know I shouldn’t, I flare, like night follows day. Remarkably, and totally ignored by researchers, the flare will occur only in the specific joint that the food affects. Rarely do we have a whole body flare unless we have really screwed up.

Anyone who has had Rheumatoid Arthritis for any length of time knows that it waxes and wanes. Some days are very bad, some days are not so bad at all, and some days we feel normal and healthy again. Then there are the days we have flares.

The cause of the variable, day to day, course of RA is our diet which also varies from day to day. What could make more sense?

The amount of officially sanctioned misinformation about Rheumatoid Arthritis is sad, unnecessary, harmful and very costly for us.

Hereditary Rheumatoid Arthritis ?? Will We Pass It On?

camsalis — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:17:12 +0000

One of the things we who are affected fear most is passing Rheumatoid Arthritis on to our children and grandchildren. So, exactly how frightened should we be?

I’ve told my daughter to quit worrying about her health inheritance for several reasons.

She’s seen me deal with the condition every day since she was 10, 17 years ago. She saw the early pain, swollen joints and fatigue. She attended doctors’ appointments with me when I was getting cortisone injections in my hands. She’s seen the worst but that was so long ago I don’t think she remembers much of it now. What she clearly remembers is the way I live today: taking care daily about what I eat and the fatigue that sets in if I cut too many corners.

She was an eye witness to the miraculous change in my life after I learned once and for all that Rheumatoid Arthritis was effectively a food allergy disease and very controllable.

She has been there as I worked (and played) every day. She and I have traveled extensively. She knows that, after the initial trauma of the diagnosis and despite the continuing upkeep, there has been no change whatever in my daily routine. And she knows deep down that she can handle her life, too.

In the ‘My Story’ articles posted here, I document my early ups and downs, my lack of confidence in the beginning for the solution I had found, and how I finally began living the right answer: diet modification.

Although the medical establishment says that the immediate trigger for RA is unknown, I’ve never met a doctor who did not insist that food allergies could not possibly give rise to the condition. In other words, they don’t know the cause but they know it can’t be food…. Does that seem like a contradiction to you?

Anyway, my daughter has the answer that I spent years pursuing. If she ever were to be affected with RA, she knows how to handle it from the get-go. Her life will change no more than mine has, and she’ll spend much less time than I did sorting it out. No matter what the future brings, her good health will not depend on life-sapping drugs.

Which brings me to my second point.

It’s widely understood by those affected that RA seems to run in families. Well, now medical researchers have isolated several genes that play a role in determining who may get RA. Those genes only make a person ‘susceptible’ to illness. They don’t dictate that the person will get sick. Please read those last two sentences again.

Will you pass on the potentially devastating disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, to those you love? If there is one thing I would like every reader to understand it’s that the unequivocal answer to that question is ‘NOT NECESSARILY.’ Having the gene for almost any disease, including breast cancer, does not mean that that gene will be ‘expressed’ as disease. It all depends on what else is going on in a person’s life. After all your worrying, the disorder may never show up in your kids and grandkids.

What medical researchers don’t know, and never will for as long as they believe that the mind is something separate from the body, is why so many people who carry the genetic components for RA do not get it.

The first RA showed up in my family with my mother. She had 4 brothers and sisters as well as umpteen aunts, uncles and cousins, who were never affected. I have RA and a brother and sister, aunts, uncles and cousins who don’t.

It is highly unlikely that all of those in my family who did not get RA lacked the genes for it. Many of those who did not get the disease had (statistically) the same genes that my mother and I carried.

So something else is going on that wreaks havoc in susceptible people, and much of the time it is probably stress. Sometimes stress is created by outside events and sometimes by internal biologic changes. It is widely recognized as a nasty precursor of many forms of ill health.

Stress can come in sudden, supersized packages, or it can be a constant, low level presence, or it can show up as anything in between. Each of us reacts to stressors in a different way. No one would ever mistake me, for example, for a laid back, devil-may-care, sort. If I had learned to handle stress early in my life, I feel certain that I wouldn’t have had to learn how to handle the instantaneous onset of severe RA later on.

On the other hand, I know people who live daily with relentless, lower levels of stress who have mild or slowly developing cases of RA.

I become more convinced every day that the answer is the same regardless of the original cause and regardless of severity: RA, and maybe every autoimmune condition, is a food allergy disease often brought on by our inability to successfully deal with the stress in our lives. **

The best defense against stress is to learn relaxing techniques, such as meditation, visualization and controlled breathing.

And that is the message that I give my daughter. If life comes with a guarantee, it is that everything is not going to be perfect all the time. Develop the skills to deal with the fall out before you need to use them.

Most important, learn to believe that you can mentally and emotionally handle whatever comes your way. If you can’t convince yourself of your own resilience, it may be time to make changes in your life.

For as long as you believe that you are in control, your life will be much more predictable. And much healthier.

The question in the title of this post is “Will We Pass On Our RA?”

The answer is this: If you have the genes for RA and your spouse does not, the possibility that your children will inherit your susceptibility is about 50-50. If they get the disease, they will have to take care about their diet and be inconvenienced like you and me.

There you have it. Now can we move on?

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** A known exception is Reactive Arthritis (Reiter’s Syndome), a rheumatic condition that mimics RA but is apparently caused by a bacterial infection in the urinary or elimination tract. It generally affects only the lower body and has the highest ‘cure’ rate of any form of arthritis.

Controlling RA Inflammation: Some Lists to Get You Started

camsalis — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:19:53 +0000

The real problem with Rheumatoid Arthritis is not the diagnosis and it’s not the condition itself inhabiting our bodies. Rheumatoid Arthritis is simply the name given to a condition of chronic inflammation where the immune system, designed to be one of our best friends, gets completely confused and turns against us.

It’s inflammation that has led researchers to say that the average work life after a diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis is only ten years.

It’s inflammation that causes the degradation of the joints that can lead to disability.

It’s inflammation that makes us vulnerable to horrendously expensive and harmful toxins, known as biologics, that only, in the end, benefit the pharmaceutical company. Because our bodies will always, sooner or later, develop a tolerance to any drug that attempts to override its own programming, pharmaceuticals will never overcome the pain and destructive capacity of RA for long. Drugs, no matter how effective they seem at first, are never the long term solution to the problem.

The good news is that none of that matters because we can heal ourselves, permanently and cost free.

Once diagnosed with RA, our primary goal should be to learn how to disable the inflammatory response, which will eliminate the swelling, pain, fatigue and joint destruction – all the symptoms of RA.

Controlling run-amuck inflammation is the key to our entire future. And the way to control it is always the same: Figure out what is causing it and stop.

It has long been reported in books and in medical research (done in Europe where drug manufacturers don’t always control the research agenda) that changes to our diet can eliminate all symptoms of RA.

It seems to many suffering with autoimmune conditions like RA that the disorder is so severe and so beyond control that the solution to this incurable problem must surely be more complicated than changing one’s diet.

But it is not. The symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis, and probably many other inflammatory conditions, are the result of food sensitivities. Please read that last statement again.

Anyone can easily confirm that RA is caused by food by simply fasting, or drastically changing the diet, for three days. By the fourth day, when all symptoms are gone, the person has all the evidence needed that s/he is in complete control his or her life, no matter the opinion of any ‘expert’. (See ‘The RA Diet: The 3-Day Phenomenon’ under the tab ‘HOW TO FIX RA’ at the top.)

The process of isolating foods that should be eliminated from our diet can be slow and frustrating. But it is also safe, cost free, and permanent, none of which can be said of the pharmaceutical alternatives.

As millions have learned for themselves, Rheumatoid Arthritis is a problem solved when we start viewing it as a food sensitivity disorder.

Our bodies and our food triggers are unique to each of us. No one can tell any of us which foods we need to avoid. We have to figure it out for ourselves using trial and error, keeping a food-and-feeling journal, and being patient with ourselves and our wacky immune system as it tries to protect us from foods it mistakenly believes are toxins.

Many foods that cause ‘flares’ if eaten daily can be rotated and eaten no more than once every 3-4 days to make them friends again.

Given the unique random nature of our food allergies, there are still foods that have inflammatory properties all of their own. Until we know better how they affect us, we would do well to treat them with caution. Find more information here.

These examples are from ‘The Inflammation Free Diet Plan’ by Monica Reinagel.

Highly inflammatory foods:

– Malted barley flour, an ingredient currently in all bakery products
– Organ meats
– Fried foods
– Sugar
– Anything made with oils that contain trans fats
– Starchy foods like corn, rice and potatoes have more inflammatory factors than non-starchy foods

Foods that calm inflammation:

– Any non-farmed fish
– Non-starchy salad vegetables
– Salmon fish oil and cod liver oil
– Canola oil
– Olive oil
– Chili and other peppers
– Onions, garlic, sweet potatoes

Foods that are not mentioned have little affect on inflammation, especially when eaten in moderation.

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Vitamins, herbs, spices that calm inflammation:

Ginger — 2-3 gram/day
Curcumin (turmeric) 1-2 grams/day
Nettle leaf – 1-2 grams /day
Ginkgo Biloba – 100-25- mg day
Bromelain – 1.5-2 grams/day

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Diseases scientifically linked to excessive inflammation:

Rheumatoid Arthritis and other autoimmune conditions
Cancer
Alzheimer’s
Heart Disease
Obesity
Diabetes
Asthma
Allergies
Prostrate Disease

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Rheumatoid Nodules, Vasculitis: More of the Same

camsalis — Sat, 07 May 2011 17:30:52 +0000

Strange and scary things can happen to the human body when it has Rheumatoid Arthritis, as though it has a secret mind of its own and it’s not sharing with you.

But, really no need be frightened by the unexpected doings of your body.

Eventually you’ll reach the point that you attribute any new symptom to the disorder and you’ll know instantly how to handle it without adjusting medication or getting cortisone shots. You’ll just check your journal for anything unusual you’ve eaten recently, you’ll eliminate it, wait a few days, and it goes away. For as long as you stay away from whatever food caused the complication, it won’t come back.

Cases in point are Rheumatoid nodules and vasculitis, both of which are fairly unusual side effects of RA caused by out of control inflammation.

Rheumatoid nodules are bumps under the skin that can appear at pressure points like the elbow. They can be annoying and occasionally painful but are not serious. They are more an indication that you should be doing more to help your immune system deal with the source of the problem: food. As you know from this blog, RA is the result of an immune system seriously annoyed by what you’ve been eating. All symptoms vanish once you learn how to work with it and stay away from foods that tick it off.

Vasculitis is an inflammation of the blood vessels and is well worth learning to avoid. While nodules can seem like a gentle reminder to eat differently, vasculitis can be regarded as a warning. It is a rare side effect of RA that affects blood vessels anywhere from the skin, where it can look like a rug burn, to the heart where it may show up as pericarditis, as pain in the arm, leg or anywhere else. If you have RA and unexplained pain that does not appear related to your joints, it may be vasculitis.

The symptoms and side effects of RA are always related to inflammation and the way to successfully handle them is always the same: control the inflammation.

When unwanted effects show up you may choose to visit your rheumatologist and get a cortisone injection or increase the dose of your drug of choice, but they are only temporary remedies. The permanent answer is to work with your body by changing your diet and keeping a journal of everything you eat. That journal will eventually point the way to foods you should avoid. It is your blueprint to health.

Please stay away from the websites that discuss rheumatoid nodules and vasculitis because they invariably give the worst case scenario and make it sound like their prognosis is what you should expect. Actually, when you learn to control RA with food and your diet, nothing these websites say applies to you, because you are in control.

“Food Fixes RA? Maybe for You But Not for Me.”

camsalis — Mon, 02 May 2011 18:35:18 +0000

I thought I’d tell you a little about the reception this web site has had since I started posting about a year ago.

There have been some wonderful success stories where someone decided to look for a different answer than the one handed to them by physicians, and, rather than rely on a succession of lethal and ultimately ineffective drugs to handle Rheumatoid Arthritis, found permanent health by modifying their diet.

Like Jen, who had been suffering with RA for three years and, rather than begin a new biologic to replace the one she had been taking which had lost its effectiveness, she decided to take matters into her own hands and do some research.

She found us and others online who encouraged her to find her own way and assured her that she could indeed triumph over a dreaded disease by making different food choices.

Like all of us who have made the leap from flares, fear and fatigue to good health, Jen has to handle the ups and downs and complexities of learning to work with her immune system by finding the right changes to her diet. As food growing and processing methods change, as well as our bodies over time, control can seem like an ongoing work in progress.

But the same is true of the deadly drugs that are the current medical alternative. After the immune system is disabled by biologics, it adapts to the circumstances in the body and comes roaring back again. The drug in use then becomes ineffective and we have to either increase the dose or find a new drug and start the process over again. That is why the users of pharmaceuticals have to change drugs so often.

There will never be a time when the user of a biologic can assume that a prescribed drug has solved the problem forever. That person will always, at some point, need a new drug. Big Pharma, as hard as it tries, can hardly keep up and new immune system supressors seem to show up daily.

Sooner or later the rope will run out and biologics will no longer be regarded as the solutiion so many today think they have found.

Not all of those who landed on this website have had the reaction that Jen did.

There have been some who had early success by modifying their diet, hit a road bump, and decided that it was easier to just take the drugs. I have to admit that I did the same thing myself until it finally sank in that drugs would never be the answer. I didn’t like the idea that I would spend my life exchanging one med for another, hoping that the disease didn’t progress and that the drugs didn’t kill me. For me, as for Jen, the effort to find a way to work with my body was, in the end, the only way to go.

It’s as though our body makes a decision at the molecular level and nothing in the medical arsenal will override it for long. We have to work with the set of circumstances it gives us by addressing the immediate reason for its annoyance — food intolerance. Our bodies repeatedly reject a drug solution as though trying to let us know that pharmaceutical weapons will never control it.

There has been resistance from other areas, also.

There are many who simply don’t want to hear the message that those with autoimmune conditions can often control their own destiny. Chief among those are people and organizations who profit from ill health. When you think about all the money you and your insurers spend on drugs, doctors and appliances to control the condition, you will know who they are. Autoimmune disease is big business.

To be fair, there are many in the medical profession who simply don’t know (or won’t believe) anything they weren’t taught in medical school. And one thing they never learn in medical school is that the patient may at times be better off without them.

But Big Pharma doesn’t deserve a free pass. They know that diet is a major influence in the control of Rheumatoid Arthritis because they read the same research I do. Think about the cost of the prescription meds you take. Pharmaceutical companies are among the most profitable on the planet. And to an astounding, unconscionable, degree, they underwrite medical schools, medical education and physicians’ practices.

The next time you’re in a doctor’s office, take note of the ads for Big Pharma. Their logos might be on the clock on the wall, prescription pads, pens, magazines, or anywhere else. You never know how obligated the physician feels for all the largesse s/he has accepted from the drug companies. Research says the doctor will say the answer is ‘none at all’ but his or her documented prescription practices tell a different story. If you see no pharma freebies anywhere in your physician’s office, you’ve found a doctor who is unlikely to be conflicted about your best interests. You may have found someone you will want to keep.

There are others who are resistant to the idea that they can deal with RA on their own.

Some patients prefer to be patients. Being out there on our own is hard work and letting someone else take care of us is such a seductive idea that we can easily be blinded to the true cost. I will always regret that I couldn’t convince my mother to try it my way, even as she saw me break free of the condition and as her own condition worsened. She never trusted herself to handle her own life, despite daily evidence that her physicians had no good alternative.

I also regret that it took me as long as it did to trust my own body and give up the toxic drugs whose impact, in the end, was worse than the disorder.

There are others who block the message of this site for an entirely different reason. Sadly, they have been sick with RA for a long time, they are physically and economically heavily invested in the disorder, and they don’t want to hear that they could have done anything differently. While those persons have my deep sympathy, I would ask them to give themselves the opportunity to feel good again, drug free. Changing one’s diet may be difficult, and understanding the intricacies of one’s body may seem impossible some days, but it is a no-risk proposition.

The advice regarding diet and Rheumatoid Arthritis on this website has got me – and who knows how many others – banned from numerous RA forums. Some, like the forum hosted by the Arthritis Foundation, are heavily loaded with ads for drugs.

Last week Google sent an email notifying me that my (expensive) little ads for this website violated their requirement that I have the approval of some pharmaceutical institute to advertise a ‘cure’ for RA. Huh … ??? Eventually, they took another look and decided there was no violation of their rules. Never found out why Google, which runs millions of ads for health care, happened to send a rejection notice to us.

I wish I heard more from you all. I know you are out there because hundreds of you are subscribers, but most days it feels like I’m all alone in a vacuum. How are YOU doing?

Leaky Gut and Rheumatoid Arthritis

camsalis — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:43:05 +0000

There is always mention of ‘leaky gut’ whenever there is a discussion of RA. According to most physicians it is strictly a theory and one that’s not very relevant at that. (You expected something else?) But according to many with autoimmune disorders, it is a fact of life.

Who should we believe, how do we fix it, and what difference does it make?

The concept of ‘leaky gut’ is finally receiving attention from researchers as it becomes clear that every molecule in the body is related to every other in a dynamic balancing act. No part of our bodies functions in a vacuum and nothing about it is simple. The intestinal tract, it is now known, is not a disinterested bystander that stands back while nutrients make a dash for the blood stream. Through a complex barrier mechanism, it controls the equilibrium in the gut. When this dance is disrupted in the genetically susceptible and large molecules reach the bloodstream before processing is completed in the gut, autoimmune disorders can occur or become worse – our immune system’s attempt to cope with the unexpected.

Leaky gut results from defects in the intestinal barrier which allow particles of food, medicine or bacteria to permeate the gut and move into the blood stream and surrounding tissue. It has been observed in a number of bowel disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and is now becoming evident in the pathology of gastrointestinal diseases, cardiovascular disease, and other acute and chronic diseases including RA.

The fact is that the gut has to be permeable to enable the absorption of nutrients by our bodies. Problems move in only when the healthy function of the gut is hijacked by pathogens, like viruses, or bacteria; by physical triggers like drugs, pharmaceuticals or damaging foods; or by other inflammatory stressors, including our state of mind.

Those of us with an autoimmune condition like RA live in a semi-constant state of inflammation, made better or worse by our food choices. Items that make it more likely that we will accidentally create a leaky gut include gluten or other damaging foods, toxins like alcohol, and especially drugs, including over the counter and prescription NSAIDS including naproxen sodium (Aleve), ibuprofen (Advil) and aspirin of every descriptions.

There is no longer any doubt that NSAIDS wear away our stomach lining, causing ulcers and bleeding problems. The anemia that is so often associated with RA may be the direct result of blood loss through our intestines attributable to the use of aspirin-type products. It’s a very short step from the intestinal permeability created by NSAIDS to a leaky gut.

How to fix it?

Some compounds that may help are such natural pain killers as glutamine, N-acetyl cysteine and zinc, as well as probiotics. Berberine is a traditional herbal medicine from Southeast Asia which has been used by patients with gastrointestinal disorders for a long time. According to other sources, Berberine can alleviate intestinal inflammation and may be capable of restoring barrier function.

Although I found no research that focused on healing a leaky gut, we may be able to learn from other disorders that have shown that the correct function of the intestine can be restored within weeks by simply eliminating the toxins that caused the problem. Our body wants to be healthy and knows how to do it better than we do. Doesn’t it always right itself after a cold, broken bone, flu, scrape or burn? Celiac disease fixes itself soon after the gluten trigger is eliminated. Gout, Irritable Bowel Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis all vanish quickly as soon as we stop annoying our immune systems with food it doesn’t like.

NSAIDS are anticoagulants and slow the clotting ability of the blood. For that reason, your surgeon will probably tell you that he doesn’t want to operate until any you’ve taken clear your body, which they usually reckon at two weeks. The blood loss from aspirin products also disappears within two weeks.

A substitute for aspirin-type products is Tylenol (aceteminophen) which is not an NSAID and does not generally damage the intestinal tract. Always follow package directions for meds that contain aceteminophen. Your life may depend on it.

The good news is that, according to all reports, leaky gut is something we do to ourselves, by using harmful food and drugs. So we can fix it.

If we toss the toxins from our lives we won’t have to worry about handling a messy intestinal tract.   All we have to do is get out of our body’s way and let it work its magic.

Herbs, Spices, Botanicals: Expect a Miracle

camsalis — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:10:05 +0000

An article in Science Daily says that a derivative of the popular Middle Eastern spice turmeric, or curcumin, its active ingredient, shows promise for repairing damage due to stroke.

The medicinal properties of turmeric have been known since ancient times in Southeast Asia. It has been used as an antiseptic for cuts, burns and bruises, as an antibacterial agent and as an anti-inflammatory recommended for Rheumatoid Arthritis. It has also been used as a remedy for irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal conditions and is now being studied for possible use in cancer, Alzheimers, and AIDS in addition to stroke.

If it sounds like turmeric is a wonder drug, it is. And there are others just like it. The reason I include it on a site devoted to Rheumatoid Arthritis is that spices and other botanicals can be little miracles just waiting to be discovered.

My friend Maria had a chronic asthma-related cough for many years that numerous doctors had been unable to fix. She called it her air pollution cough, since anything floating in the air, like cigarette smoke, diesel exhaust or perfume, set it off. It was so constant and so intense that she thought she was headed to an early disability retirement. To control the severe hacking she was taking theophylline, a prescription drug that comes with a warning of possible sudden death. It was only marginally useful for her cough.

On an extended car trip one day she took ginger to control motion sickness. The ginger worked the way it was supposed to and eliminated her nausea, but something else happened. To her stunned amazement, her cough vanished.

She and I combed the medical literature and searched for anecdotal evidence but could find no mention anywhere that ginger could affect an asthmatic, chronic cough. We began to think that Maria had found magic that was unique to herself. But that wasn’t true.

Eventually we unearthed the rest of the story. In addition to its many well-known medicinal properties, including as an anti-inflammatory, ginger has another characteristic that is less known. It is a powerful anti-spasmodic, which is why it calmed her cough. How many other spasm-related conditions could this simple spice, easily available and found in most kitchen pantries, cure if more people knew?

Strictly by accident, Maria had stumbled into her own personal miracle. And that is my point.  Expect a miracle.  You never know when one is waiting in plain sight for you to show up.

Below is a list of other spices and herbs with known medicinal properties.

Several very effective botanicals are not on the list. One is FEVERFEW, a relative of the daisy flower, which magically eliminated my migraine headaches and those of everyone I recommended it to. I took it daily in low doses. No side effects, no dangerous drugs, and no more migraines

Another is BLACK COHOSH, an over the counter and extremely effective remedy for the symptoms of menopause. It can completely eliminate any need for hormones or other therapy. Unknown numbers of women believe that it, too, is miraculous.

ECHINACEA, or purple coneflower, the recent subject of another post on this site, has been scientifically validated to boost the immune system and shorten colds.

Many of the botanicals listed here can be grown in your own garden.

For information about how to use the herbs and spices listed below, go to Using Herbs and Spices for Health.

GARLIC

Garlic is one of the best-known and widely used herbal medicines. Garlic is a strong weapon against infection and a natural antibiotic. It has been found to reduce cholesterol and high blood pressure and is sometimes used to treat yeast infections.

CHAMOMILE

Chamomile is often used as a tea for its mild sedative effects. It is also used to soother digestive ailments and to reduce fever. It may also be applied topically to soothe skin irritations and diaper rash.

NUTMEG

A common household spice, nutmeg is a natural stimulant to the cardiovascular system. It is also used to relieve the joint inflammation associated with gout. This spice should be used carefully since large doses can be toxic. It is not to be used by pregnant women or children as a herbal remedy.

THYME

This spice may also be used as an antiseptic agent when crushed and applied to clean cuts and abrasions. As a tea, it calms the stomach and can reduce the pain of menstrual cramps. Thyme may also be used as a treatment for colds.

GINGER

Ginger has many medicinal uses. It is a very effective treatment for motion sicknesss and general nausea. It is also use to treat menstrual cramps and the nausea associated with chemotherapy.

SAGE

This pungent herb is used as a remedy for colds, sore throat and other respiratory ailments, as well as urinary tract problems. It has been used to control some symptoms of diabetes.

FENNEL

Fennel is a herb used widely to treat infant colic and gas. It is also a strong liver detoxifier and diuretic.

FENUGREEK

Fenugreek is used by many women who suffer from the symptoms of menopause–hot flashes, night sweats, etc. It is also used to reduce cholesterol and relieve constipation. It has been discovered that fenugreek binds with wholesterol in the intestine and encourages the excretion of cholesterol from the body.

CLOVES

Cloves act as a wound antiseptic by killing harmful bacteria. It is also used to treat indigestion and diarrhea. Cloves also acts as a deterrent to free-radical damage to the body.

ROSEMARY

Rosemary is another herbal remedy which calms the digestive system. As an oil, it is used to help relieve sore muscles and increase circulation when applied to the skin.

TURMERIC

This spice has been used to treat arthritis, dysentery and heart disease. It is also believed to lower the risk for certain cancers by attacking free radicals.

CAYENNE (RED PEPPER)

Cayenne may be taken or used topically. It contains capsaicin, a substance which is also used as an active ingredient in many commercial pain medications. Cayenne also aids in digestion.

CELERY SEED

This spice is also used to treat heart disease, high blood pressure and to reduce cholesterol.

CORIANDER

Another digestive calmant, coriander is used to treat colic and general nausea.

CINNAMON

This spice is used to ocntrol the level of blood sugar for diabetics. It is also used to relieve the symptoms of urinary tract infections and yeast infections.

GOLDEN SEAL

This is a powerful detoxifier and is used to relieve sore throat, gum inflammation and yeast infections.

OREGANO

Used to relieve various respiratory problems, oregano may also relieve digestive upset and yeast infections.

LICORICE ROOT

Licorice root is a remedy to relieve menopausal symptoms. In some instances, it has been found to have as much effect as hormone replacement therapy in women.

SAFFRON

Studies have shown saffron to be instrumental in destroying the cancer cells that cause leukemia.

CURCUMIN (Tumeric)

Curcumin is being studied as a treatment for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Early Death and Rheumatoid Arthritis

camsalis — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:02:22 +0000

TV personality Deborah Norville said that her mother died prematurely “from Rheumatoid Arthritis.”

With all due respect to Ms Norville, no one dies from RA. Like osteoarthritis and many other non-fatal conditions among the genetically susceptible (e.g., Down’s Syndrome, mental illnesses), RA is more a disorder and less a disease.

All of us who live with the condition will die ‘with RA’ just as we will die ‘with a liver’, ‘with a brain’, ‘with fingernails.’ RA is not in the same mortality category as diabetes or stroke, leading causes of death listed on death certificates.

Nevertheless, Rheumatoid Arthritis can be a contributing factor to death from other causes, generally inflammation-related, but one is hard pressed to find any records listing RA as a cause of death by itself. In this list of annual causes of mortality, RA is conspicuously absent.

Any number of studies have concluded that those of us with Rheumatoid Arthritis are doomed to die several years before we would otherwise, usually, they say, from cardiovascular disease (CVD). In vanishingly rare instances inflammation resulting from the disease attacks a vital organ like the heart and the patient may die.   Even then the cause of death is inflammation officially coded, for example, as ‘pericarditis,’ not Rheumatoid Arthritis.

It’s clear that a major problem is inflammation. But it’s not the only problem. The other big cause of death for us is the drugs we take, both over the counter and prescription.

There are a number of non-RA-related factors that influence CVD mortality and we who want to die later in life need to pay attention to those the same as everyone else does — things like hypertension, our weight, and, crucially, smoking.

What we don’t need is more lethal medications which too often bring death all by themselves. I have a hunch that heart disease is sometimes a convenient catch-all diagnosis for deaths that were actually caused by pharmaceuticals. Without an autopsy, no one would know the difference. And the number of autopsies on RA patients is infinitesimal.

I could find no reliable estimate for deaths due specifically to arthritis meds but mortality resulting from properly prescribed and properly used FDA-approved prescription drugs, administered in a hospital, was estimated at over 108,000 in 1997, the most current data available. The same study showed that aspirin alone caused almost 10,000 deaths that year. Another 80,000 were hospitalized but survived. Additional deaths from hospital infections (88,000), ‘medical errors’ (98,000), unnecessary surgery (783,000) and other hospital misadventures have made our medical system one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. despite the fact that we are lead to believe that our biggest killers are cancer and heart disease.

It isn’t easy to square these facts with the endlessly repeated mantra that the U.S. has the best medical system in the world.

Fortunately for us, we can solve our problem with Rheumatoid Arthritis on our own.

When it comes to death among those with RA, a few researchers who are coming closer to the truth. Here’s one from Current Opinions in Rheumatology (Italics are mine):

Good control of the inflammation, immunologic disturbances, and metabolic changes seen in rheumatoid arthritis are crucial in the prevention of this potentially lethal complication.

Here’s another from Annals of Rheumatic Diseases:

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are known to be at higher risk than patients without RA for adverse outcomes related to cardiovascular disease (CVD), … The exact causes for this increased risk are unknown, but it is assumed that traditional CVD risk factors such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, family history of CVD, and smoking play a role, as well as RA-related factors including systemic inflammation, vessel injury due to immune complexes, and perhaps medication-related effects on CVD.

A physician who critiqued the research methods described in this article got it right:

This study has several limitations, including a lack of evaluation of the contribution of … medications to CVD risk ….

The bottom line is this: By controlling inflammation, we can control our risk for early death due to heart disease. The safest, surest, way to do that is to modify the factor that causes the inflammation — our diet.

Plus my own free advice: Controlling inflammation by listening to your body and changing the food you eat is within your ability, low cost, and risk free. You don’t have to rely on dangerous drugs to do the controlling for you.