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Today, we're going to talk about the seven worst foods for joint pain and arthritis. And then I'm going to go right into the foods that you should eat for arthritis and joint pain. I am going to touch mostly on osteoarthritis,
Dr. Eric Berg explains 7 foods to avoid for arthritis and what to eat instead to reduce joint inflammation and pain.
Key Takeaways
- Avoid certain foods and ingredients like emulsifiers, refined oils, alcohol, casein A1, and gluten to reduce arthritis symptoms.
- Bile salts produced by gut microbes play a crucial anti-inflammatory role in joint health.
- Vitamin K2 helps prevent harmful calcium buildup in joints, while vitamin D modulates immune response in rheumatoid arthritis.
- Supplements like Tutka can reduce cellular stress linked to inflammation in arthritis.
- Maintaining gut health is essential for managing joint inflammation through the gut-joint axis.
Summary
- The video discusses the seven worst foods for joint pain and arthritis, focusing mainly on osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and gout.
- Dr. Berg explains the role of chondrocytes and the endoplasmic reticulum in joint health and inflammation.
- Bile salts, especially secondary bile salts produced by gut microbes, act as potent anti-inflammatories in joints.
- Tutka, a specialized bile salt supplement, helps reduce endoplasmic reticulum stress and inflammation in arthritis.
- Vitamin K2 is important to prevent calcium buildup in joints and soft tissues, reducing calcification and osteophytes.
- Vitamin D is critical for reducing inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis by modulating the immune system.
- The gut-joint axis is introduced, highlighting the connection between gut health, bile salts, and joint inflammation.
- Seven foods or ingredients to avoid for arthritis are discussed, including emulsifiers, refined oils, alcohol, casein A1 protein, and gluten.
- Therapeutic dosages of vitamin D, along with vitamin K2 and magnesium, are recommended for managing arthritis symptoms.
- Collagen intake and its challenges are briefly mentioned as part of joint health support.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to arthritis and joint pain foods
- 01:42Cell biology basics: chondrocytes and protein folding
- 03:03Role of bile salts in inflammation and joint health
- 04:49Bile salts, Tutka supplement, and cellular stress
- 06:21Vitamin K2 and calcium buildup in joints
- 07:51Rheumatoid arthritis and vitamin D importance
- 10:43Seven foods and ingredients to avoid for arthritis
- 12:44Dietary recommendations and supplements for arthritis
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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but also rheumatoid arthritis and gout. I've had so many old injuries in the past that these old injuries can definitely haunt someone the older they get. So arthritis and inflammation is a very important thing on my mind.
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I'm always diving into this topic, and I found something that I want to share with you that is extremely interesting. I just have to give you a couple little basics on some words that I need to define. The first one is a
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chondrocyte. What is that? It's a cell that makes up your cartilage. Okay, so when we're dealing with joint pain, it's important to kind of dig into what makes up a joint and study that. Knowing this information could potentially
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completely resolve your arthritis pain. What did I find? Well, when I was studying these chondrocytes and how inflammation develops, there's always this reference to this term right here. Before I tell you what the term is, it's something in your
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cells as a part of the assembly line to help make certain things. This particular thing in your cells has a job of folding proteins. It's just like you would fold a paper airplane, right? You have to fold it in a certain
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way so it'll work. Same thing with your cells. Deep inside you have this little factory that is manipulating different amino acids to make different proteins in a certain shape. That thing is called, and you ready for this?
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Endoplasmic reticulum. It's a part of the factory in your cell that folds proteins so you can use them. It also has a function of storing calcium. What was interesting to me is that you have a lot of different things that
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could happen in the cell. You have a lot of different parts. But they kept bringing up this particular part of that factory having stress that originates the cascade of inflammatory events even before mitochondrial damage. I found that very, very interesting. All right,
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so just hang with me. There's a couple more pieces of this puzzle, but that's the first one. The second thing that I learned was even more mind-blowing because in this chondrocyte there happens to be receptors for bile salts. Now wait a second. Bile
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salts, that's in your gallbladder. Why do you have receptors for bile in your joints? That didn't make sense to me. I had to kind of go deeply into this for like an hour or two to really wrap my
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wits around it. But in summary, this is what I found. There's two types of bile.
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Okay? You have the bile that your liver makes that helps you digest fat, but you also have another bile called the secondary bile, not the primary, that your microbes help you make from your own bile. So basically, they're not actually making
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bile. They're just manipulating yours in a way that changes them to create other functions in the body that go way beyond just digestion, the digestion of fats.
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So in other words, there are other important functions of bile salt, and one function is acting as a potent anti-inflammatory in your joints. Apparently, some of these bile salts get into your blood and they go to different parts of the body like your
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joints and help protect the joint and reduce inflammation, which is very, very interesting. When I was in practice, I know when people had their gallbladders out or they had some antibiotic, they nearly always got some type of arthritis or joint pain. So, it
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got the wheels spinning on that topic. But then I remembered Tutka. What is Tutka? Tutka is a very specialized bile salt and it's a supplement that people take. But I had no idea until I looked it up that one of
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the unique things about Tutka is that it reduces this ER stress, this endoplasmic reticulum stress, as a very unique benefit. This bile salt reduces stress on the endoplasmic reticulum. So now it started to make more sense that
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basically the bile is not just reducing inflammation, it's actually helping the factory that is repairing, maintaining, and building your joints because this is a real key part of that process. This connection of the bile is super important in
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protecting this part of the cell machinery and also to keep the inflammation out of this right here.
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Because if something happens with that bile and you're deficient and you get more of this endoplasmic stress, then what happens as a cascade of events? You start getting mitochondrial stress, and now we have a breakdown of this whole
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apparatus. Also, calcium is involved because apparently this little endoplasmic reticulum has another function of storing calcium. So you can imagine when we're talking about joints, we're also talking about preventing calcification.
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So that's just something new, a very foundational thing. I'm going to relate this to the worst foods for arthritis and then also the best foods so you can then have enough of these from the diet and know how to control that and reduce
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your arthritis or inflammation in your joints. Maybe you've heard of the gut-brain axis. Okay, well there's a gut-joint axis as well, and that's where I got the information from. I will share that in the link down below if you want
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to learn more about it. But apparently these bile salts are potent anti-inflammatories. I'm talking about the bile salts that come from your own microbes making them wild. Just since we're on the topic of bile, I want
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to touch just more on this Tutka, which is a different type of bile salt. It's actually bear bile, and they don't take it from bears anymore. They make it synthetically. This bile is very potent in shutting down inflammatory signaling
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molecules in arthritis, which is this right here. I don't want to give you more complex words. Just realize that Tutka helps shut down inflammation very potently with all types of arthritis.
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Now, let's touch on another key piece of the puzzle, which is vitamin K2. Maybe you've heard of vitamin K1, which has to do with clotting. Some people take a medication called warfarin which blocks vitamin K1 so they don't clot as
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much and so they're preventing heart attacks. So that's vitamin K1. But vitamin K2 does something slightly different. It prevents calcium from building up in the soft tissues. If you are deficient in vitamin K2 for some reason, you may get
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calcification in the joints or the arteries possibly or even osteophytes, which are little spurs that can happen around the joints.
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One interesting thing about people that are on warfarin, one of the side effects is not only the blocking of vitamin K1 but also the blocking of vitamin K2. It won't work.
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And this is why one of the side effects of warfarin is increased calcification of your soft tissues in the joints and in the arteries. I mean, it's pretty wild that you're taking warfarin for the heart with the side effect of having it
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create calcification in the blood vessels around the heart. Like, that doesn't make sense to me. But what you should know is vitamin K2 is in foods that are higher in fat. So, when we get to the diet part, I'll explain more on
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that. But this is a really key vitamin to keep the calcium from building up in the joints and reducing inflammation.
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Now, let's talk about RA, rheumatoid arthritis. This is an autoimmune disease where your own immune system is attacking itself. So, we have these antibodies that are against our own joints and that keeps the joint in a constant state of
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inflammation. I'm not going to give you any more new words with the immune system, but it's going to be an imbalance with these two little things right here. All you need to know is there is a really important vitamin that
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helps to put the fire out and reduce inflammation, and that is vitamin D. But if you take regular amounts of vitamin D, it might not create a therapeutic effect. In fact, it's probably not going to be.
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create this therapeutic effect on the joints, but really you're creating it on the immune system because rheumatoid arthritis is more of an immune problem than a joint problem because there's a lot of different autoimmune diseases.
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Rheumatoid arthritis is just one of them, but it's a problem within the immune system. So, as far as the amount of vitamin D you would have to take, I would take at least at the very minimum, 20,000 I use, but probably 30 or 40. I'm
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going to put a link down below of maybe a doctor you want to work with if you have rheumatoid arthritis to regulate uh how much vitamin D you need and then do other tests to make sure you're doing it
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correctly. But when you're taking high doses of vitamin D3, you should also take magnesium and zinc and vitamin K2 because they all work together. But this will greatly reduce inflammation in the joint. Whether you have uh rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis,
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vitamin D is one of the best anti-inflammatories, especially for in the knees and your lower back, actually in any joint. If you're deficient in vitamin D, your inflammatory signals go way up. Now, when you have arthritis or joint pain, there are things that are
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triggering it from food, like a food allergy. So we will be talking about that. Some of the most common things in the foods also there's advanced glyceric endroducts that comes from having glucose or sugar with a protein.
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Basically when you do high carbs you're going to get these and that's going to create this sticky protein that's going to create inflammation. uh they have found in the joints this certain thing called bofilm and there's microbes in the bofilm. It's kind of like this uh
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slime or this protective glue that has microbes in these little calcium shells and so your immune system can't find these microbes. Well, guess what? They found that some of those microbes are related to your your teeth. Yeah. So if
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you have an old root canal that's infected and somehow that infection is still there in your gums and that sits in your gum for a period of time and that can leak into your lymphatic system into your blood and it can go into the
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joints and it can go into the arteries and it can keep you arthritic. But the big new thing that I wanted to share with you today is this microbiome problem. Wow. The importance of your microbiome and your joints is way more
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significant than actually I thought. So it's something we're going to cover when we talk about the food right now. Okay.
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So we have the seven foods that you want to avoid. Now these are not necessarily just foods. They're ingredients and a lot of foods. The first one is emulsifiers. An emulsifier in a food is something that mixes things up in a way
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that is very blended. And so, um, you'll see these emulsifiers like one of them is polyorbate 80. Okay? You'll see these in frozen desserts, creamy dressings, and what they do is they really mess up the microbiome.
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You remember the microbiome that actually helps you make those bile salts that you need for your joints? Well, there's a high correlation between eating these foods and consuming this and having inflammation in the joints.
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And I wanted to just point that out and make you aware of that. Let's to go to number two. Lowfat soy protein powder.
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If you look at some of these protein bars, sometimes they'll use soy isolate protein. It's very low fat. It's an industrial protein. And I do know a lot of people who use that protein end up with achy joints, arthritis. Why? Well,
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because it interferes with the liver. When you don't consume animal protein and you get your protein from things like soy protein or or plant-based protein, you're going to get a very low amount of torine, if any torine. Torine
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is needed to make bile. Okay? So, that's one thing that is missing in a vegan diet is torine. You don't have the primary thing that stimulates the production of bile and the contraction of the gallbladder. You need fat for
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that. So people on a low-fat diet, they end up with a deficiency of bile, which can then end up with a problem with arthritis. Now, there could also be uh residues of hexane, which is a solvent in this soy protein. Now, some people
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will say, "Oh, it evaporates. It's not there." But there's no one supervising or regulating that right now, unfortunately. But, uh, so it may be there, it may not be there. We don't know. And like I said before, we're not
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going to get the bio stimulation. Instead, we're going to get this thing that's going to create more inflammation in the area of the liver and the digestive tract, which is going to interfere with the microbes. Number three, refined seed oils. I want to
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explain something. When they have done studies on seed oils, they have actually said when they replace the saturated fat with these seed oils, there was an improvement in cardiovascular function and insulin sensitivity. And I'm not denying that. My point is, what
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type of oil did they use? Did they use the typical oil that people get when they go to a fast food restaurant where it's heated and reheated and reheated for days or weeks? Absolutely not. So, there are seed oils that are coldressed,
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very, very minimal refining. And then you have the typical oil, which is refined, bleached, deodorized, heated to 570°.
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When you heat those oils, you create byproducts called aldahhides which create a lot of damage in the joint and in the arteries and also in your mitochondria and in the cells that regulate insulin. So yeah, you can hypothetically say these oils are fine,
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but what about the complete picture? What about the byproducts that are created from the heat and the reheating as well as the aldahhides that are created once these seed oils are embedded into your membranes? Some of these oils, safflower oil, if it's
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coldressed or even the sunflower oil has a much lower omega-6 fatty acid and much higher monounsaturated fats just like avocado oil and olive oil. But that's completely different than what most people consume or buy at the store. So
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this is why number three, refined seed oils are very inflammatory, especially for your joints. Okay. Number four, alcohol, especially beer. So beer will turn into something called purines, which then can create problems with gout and it can create inflammation in the
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joint. Beer also has carbohydrates. So, it's going to create a spike in blood sugar and create inflammation.
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And it's not just the beer that will create problems with arthritis, the wine and hard liquor because it messes with your liver and anything that destroys the liver will cause arthritis unfortunately. Number five, casein A1 protein. Okay, A1. A2 is less of a
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problem, but the commercial milk that they sell with A1 is the one that a lot of people have a problem with. And especially if it's condensed into these two things right here, sodium caseinate and calcium caseinate. These are like super concentrated casein A1
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protein that is going to flare up your joints and it's in a lot of the bars.
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It's a very cheap protein they use that comes from China. So you have that. You also have a concentrated casein A1 protein in cheese like the American cheese. So you want to avoid these casein uh conventional powders that they
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have. They actually put it in infant formula. Probably why children develop allergies to milk, right? Not good. If you're going to do milk protein, it's the A2.
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If you do sheep cheese or goats cheese or even cow's milk cheese, you can actually find it A2. It's much much better. But the conventional milk with A1 protein is from grain-fed cows, not grass-fed cows. And if we also compare
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milk to cheese, like cheese is going to be way more concentrated in that protein. So you'll probably have more reaction to cheese than you would milk.
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All right, number six, modern wheat. compared to some of the ancient grains. You know, I do a lot of videos on wheat and yes, it's a refined wheat product that will spike your blood sugar because the carbohydrate in there is a super
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high glycemic starch called amalopectin A, which not only will spike your blood sugars higher than sugar, it's also highly inflammatory. That's one thing.
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You also have this WGA wheat germ aglutin. That is something that is almost as inflammatory as gluten. It's a type of chemical that attaches to your gut wall and it can create leaky gut.
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And then we have glyphosate. Right now, most wheat is not GMO, but they still spray this herbicide glyphosate as a drying agent. and you're getting like a lot more of it that way.
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And if you're exposed to this, not only is this going to affect your microbiome, but it is connected to inflammation. And then we get gluten. Gluten is another protein that humans have a difficult time digesting. The byproducts from
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gluten can give a opioid like effect which kind of numbs the area initially and then all of a sudden you end up with pain that's delayed. There's just a lot of issues with gluten and arthritis and gluten and inflammation, gluten and
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thyroid problems. And of course, we have high fructose corn syrup. This is not just sugar. This is an industrial type of uh synthetic sugar. It's higher in fructose that has been known to create a lot of inflammation in your liver and
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insulin resistance in your liver which is going to create inflammation directly and indirectly. So there's really no turnoff switch. So people can drink a lot of it without kind of being satisfied. So it's it's very very dangerous. So these are the foods to
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avoid. Let's talk about the foods to eat. Fermented foods. Why? Because when you eat sauerkraut, kefir, Bulgarian yogurt, you are going to build up the microbes that help you make these secondary bile salts. And these secondary bile salts are potent
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anti-inflammatories in your joints. Second one is healthy fats. Olive oil, avocado oil, fish oils, but also animal fats that are grass-fed are also very healthy and so is grass-fed butter and grass-fed cheese.
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Number three, anything with high amounts of vitamin D3. There's salmon, cod liver, and cod liver oil. But typically, you want to get as much sun as you can, but that's not food. So then some people in the winter take it as a supplement.
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But when we're talking about arthritis, you're going to have to take the therapeutic dosage of vitamin D at the very minimum 60, but shoot for 70 or even 80 or sometimes even a little bit more depending on what type of condition
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you have. If you have also an autoimmune problem, you need it high because that's when the magic starts happening with inflammation. Also, make sure you take vitamin K2 and magnesium to offset any problems with that. Of course, omega-3
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is going to be in the the fish, cod liver oil, very important. And then also the sulfur foods, onions and garlic and cruciferous vegetables, very high in sulfur because the joints like sulfur.
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And then of course, just make sure you have enough collagen from bone broth because part of that joint is collagen.
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If you're just eating, you know, regular meat like hamburger or steak, that has a small percentage of collagen. If we take a look at our body and and look at how much protein we have, and then we look
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at how much collagen we have, we need at least 30% of that food collagen. But when you look at a steak, it's only like maybe two or three or four, maybe 5% collagen because people like tender steaks, right? They're not consuming
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these this grass-fed, grass-finish steak that's really hard to eat because you're chewing it all the time, but that's because of the collagen. You might have to get your collagen another way. I already talked about vitamin D, K2, magnesium. I want to just mention keep
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your iron low because too much iron can create arthritis. Iron is one of those minerals that it's very hard to get out of the body once you get it in there. So like cooking with an iron skillet is not
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good. Taking iron supplements is not good. Especially if you're not menrating. If you're a man and you have too much iron, chances are you're going to have a lot of inflammation. And then tuckup, I want to just mention that
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because that's a really good remedy for arthritis. And now you know why. It's something to help that endopplasmic reticulum stress as well as protecting the cartilage in the joint. And because Tucka is such a fascinating compound, if you really want to understand all the
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things it does, you want to see this video right here. Check it out.
Topics:arthritisjoint painanti-inflammatorybile saltsvitamin K2vitamin Dchondrocytesendoplasmic reticulumTutkagut-joint axis
