Prevention Of Rheumatism - Between Attacks |
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One very important and simple thing which you can do is to keep your weight under control. It is important for general health as well as for lessening rheumatism. If you keep your weight down you will not subject your joints to unnecessary strains and you will avoid the effects of undue wear known as osteo-arthritis. If you have the misfortune to develop rheumatoid arthritis your will be less liable to deform the joints when they are inflamed if you are not too heavy; this applies particularly to the leg joints of course, but even the arm joints have to work harder if you are too heavy as, for example, when you get out of a chair.
The plight of a fat person with painful or deformed joints is pathetic. Even mu8scular rheumatism, in which the joints are normal, is more tolerable if you are in good health, which includes being the right weight.
This raises the question of food and diet in general. The total quantity you eat should be that which keeps you steadily at the weight you were when you were twenty or, if you are a woman, the same plus half a stone.
Special types of food do not make any difference. Medical history is littered with diets supposed to be good for rheumatism. Vegetarianism may commend itself to some people but it must be undertaken with the help of full knowledge of healthy living that has been compiled by vegetarians over the years. Just to cut out animal foods is asking for trouble; you must include the plant products that supply certain vitamins and minerals which in England usually only come in animal products. It is also important, no matter what source your food comes from, to include enough protein, which in the ordinary English diet means the usual amount of animal products -- fish, meat, eggs, milk and cheese. Arthritis involves destruction of the body's tissue, which are partly made of protein; you need protein to repair them.
If you keep to these two simple rules of diet --- eat the right total quantity and include an ordinary amount of animal products or the proper vegetable substitutes -- you can eat what you like and make your rheumatism neither better nor worse. |
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