A pH Diet & Rheumatoid Arthritis
A pH diet is an attempt to naturally balance the acid-alkalinity ratio of your body through manipulation of your dietary intake. While ensuring that your body is operating within the correct level of pH is important for a number of reasons, including preserving bone density, there are no scientific studies that link imbalanced pH with the development of rheumatoid arthritis. Thus, while you can certainly try the pH diet in hopes of relieving your arthritis pain, do not be too hopeful that it will produce results.
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Identification
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Rheumatoid arthritis is a progressive disease of inflammation that attacks the joints of the body. While arthritis is most common among individuals of advanced age, age is not necessarily an insulating factor against development of the disease. Symptoms of arthritis include achy joints, excessive stiffness in the morning and pain that gets progressively worse over time.
Significance
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The pH diet is a dietary attempt to keep your body's pH levels operating within the normal range. The pH scale runs from 0 to 14, with values of 0 to 7 representing acidic items and values from 7 to 14 representing alkaline items. Your body's normal pH level is right around 7.4, which is slightly alkaline. Overconsumption of acidic or alkaline foods can shift this value in either direction, however.
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Effects
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Most people overconsume acidic foods and underconsume alkaline foods, leaving their body out of balance. To change this, you should increase your consumption of alkaline foods while decreasing your consumption of acidic foods. Common alkaline food groups include fruits and vegetables, while common acidic food groups include meat and grains. Thus, eating fewer meats and grains with every meal and additional fruits and veggies will bring your body back to balance.
Evidence
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Regarding the potential for the pH diet to alleviate symptoms of arthritis, the overseeing physicians at medicinenet.com note that there have been no studies supporting a link between a pH diet and a reduction in symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. The disconnect is that those who recommend the pH diet assume that rheumatoid arthritis is a disease related to acidity, which is not the case. Despite this, it is possible that you could follow the pH diet and see some measure of relief just from the process of losing weight, as this will relieve stress on your joints, mitigating the symptoms of arthritis.
Considerations
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Although science has yet to prove that the pH diet is effective for curbing the symptoms of arthritis, that does not mean that it is not---it simply means that no one has conducted a study yet on the issue. Thus, if you have exhausted all of your other alternative options for treating arthritis, trying the pH diet will certainly not worsen your existing symptoms. So while the diet might be a long shot for providing long-term relief for arthritis, it still might be worth a shot.
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