Dr. Diana Girnita explains the 5 worst foods for arthritis and offers healthier alternatives to reduce inflammation and joint pain.
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Key Takeaways
- Eliminate or drastically reduce sugar intake to lower inflammation and arthritis risk.
- Avoid processed and ultra-processed foods to reduce joint inflammation and cardiovascular risks.
- Limit bad fats such as trans fats and saturated fats to prevent worsening arthritis symptoms.
- Incorporate good fats and whole foods to support joint health and reduce inflammation.
- Lifestyle changes in diet can significantly improve arthritis symptoms and overall well-being.
What the video covers
- Arthritis includes over 100 types, caused by inflammation, wear and tear, or crystal deposits in joints.
- Certain foods increase weight and inflammation, worsening arthritis symptoms and joint damage.
- Sugar is the worst food for arthritis, causing addiction, obesity, insulin resistance, and increased inflammation.
- High sugar intake is linked to higher risks of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), gout, and exacerbated joint pain.
- Processed foods contain harmful additives, bad fats, and lack nutrients, increasing arthritis and cardiovascular risks.
- Ultra-processed foods contribute to weight gain, inflammation, and higher mortality risk, especially in arthritis patients.
- Bad fats like trans fats and saturated fats increase bad cholesterol, inflammation, and obesity, worsening arthritis.
- Good fats include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which are beneficial for the body and arthritis management.
- Removing sugar and processed foods and cooking from scratch can improve arthritis symptoms and overall health.
- The video promises to share healthier food alternatives to help improve arthritis by reducing inflammation.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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5 Worse Foods for Arthritis. Have you been suffering from joint pain and you are wondering what are the foods that are making your arthritis worse?
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Causing you to have more pain, more inflammation, worsening the disease? I am Dr. Girnita, an arthritis doctor, and today I will teach you what are the worst foods proven by science that are worsening arthritis. Stay until the end and I will
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share with you the foods that you will need to eat to improve your arthritis.
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Let’s begin… First, let's talk about arthritis. Arthritis is a term used in medicine for about 100 types of arthritis.
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Some types of arthritis are caused by inflammation like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriatic arthritis. Other types are caused by wear and tear or repetitive trauma like osteoarthritis, and this happens many times when we age. Other types of arthritis are caused by crystals that can deposit in the joints, such as
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gout. What all have in common is pain, stiffness, decreased mobility of the joints. Science showed that there are certain
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foods that can increase our weight and will also cause increased inflammation in our body.
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The increase in weight will be responsible for putting more pressure on the joints. But not only that! Our adipose tissue can
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also secrete some proteins and hormones like leptin that will increase the inflammation, and that will lead to joint destruction. Now, let's find out which are these 5 worse foods!
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Sugar. I often tell my patients that if they can remove the extra sugar from their diet, half of the battle is won. Why? Because
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sugar is the worst substance for your body. Not only that, it creates addiction, increases your
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weight, causes obesity, insulin resistance, even diabetes, inflammation in the gut, increases the
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risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s, but will also create more and more inflammation that will destroy your
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joints. Too much sugar can also cause fatty liver. Here is a study done in the UK in 2018 that showed
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that people that consumed sugar-sweetened beverages like coffee and tea, or sweetened cereals,
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are associated with more diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and higher markers of inflammation.
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Furthermore, sugar was also shown to increase the risk to develop inflammatory arthritis like
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RA or even gout. Here is a study from 2014 that looked at over 100,000 women over 20 years and that
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found that drinking more than one soda each day has an increased risk to develop RA by 63%.
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Not only that, but sugar will exacerbate the pain and inflammation if you suffer with RA or PSA.
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HFCS is also a form of sugar, actually a cheap version of sugar, that is added to many foods,
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drinks, packaged baked goods, soft drinks, and energy drinks. There are many studies
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showed that HFCS is damaging our health. Here is a study that shows that HFCS will
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increase the uric acid levels and increase the risk to develop gout, but also RA.
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Sugar is in everything these days, not only in sweets, candies, cookies,
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pastries, but also in sugary drinks and even bread and ham. There is sugar
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added to many of the so-called “healthy juices.” So, my advice: the first thing to remove from
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your diet will be sugar! Processed foods: like processed meats, frozen pizza, sweetened cereals, ham, salami, burgers,
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…actually many of the packaged or frozen foods, including some canned soups, packaged cereals,
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instant foods, and microwaveable meals, are highly processed.
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Why avoid these? Because most of their nutrients have been stripped out and
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ingredients such as salt, sweeteners, artificial flavorings, and emulsifiers have been added,
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often to improve their shelf-life. Processed foods also include a lot of bad fats,
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trans fats, and are stripped of fibers. One study looked at individuals over just two weeks and found that those who consumed a diet of ultra-processed foods gained 0.4 kg,
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while those who ate a plant-based, minimally processed diet saw weight loss.
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These foods are unhealthy for everyone,
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but particularly harmful for people with arthritis, like OA, RA, PSA, and even gout.
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Science showed that eating ultra-processed food will increase the risk to develop gout,
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develop RA. Even more, according to this study published in 2020,
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eating ultra-processed food will increase the cardiovascular risk in people with RA. What does it mean? It
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will increase your risk to develop a heart attack or even stroke because of increased inflammation.
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Yes, eating ultra-processed foods can increase your
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risk of diseases but also increase risk of mortality by almost 20%.
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So stop eating the packaged food, the processed foods, and start cooking from scratch at home.
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That will help your arthritis but also will prolong your life! Bad fats. I will start by saying that not all fats
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are bad. Fats are needed for our body, but certain fats are good and others are bad. Let me explain.
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Unsaturated fats like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the good ones and
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I will include a list a little bit later in the video, so continue to watch. These kinds of fats
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are needed and good for your body. The bad fats or unhealthy fats
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are the trans fats and saturated fats. Trans fats are usually present in processed
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foods like fried food, frozen pizza, ice cream. These are types of fats that were modified by the
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food industry to make vegetable oils appear more solid and give a desirable texture and flavor to
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food. A lot of fried foods contain trans fats. Trans fats were associated with increase in the
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bad cholesterol, more inflammation, and obesity. Obesity was then associated
Topics:arthritisjoint paininflammationrheumatoid arthritisgoutprocessed foodssugartrans fatsdiet and arthritisDr. Diana Girnita











