Abundant living with John Arts Abundant Health

Last edition we talked about developing a simple tool for reviewing your joint health. Before you start a new joint health programme, you should think about your level of both pain and comfort and how this affects mobility and score this out of 10. Each month you can then review and rate your progress. This is particularly helpful when more than one joint is affected by arthritis.

Joint pain and subsequent loss of mobility can come from several sources. Firstly, there is damage caused by some trauma or injury. Secondly, arthritic changes to joints result in cartilage loss. The third source of pain is inflammation. While inflammation is an essential part of our healing processes, misdirected or unwanted inflammation can result in a lot of pain.

The main function of cartilage is to allow for smooth movement of the bones in the joint. Cartilage acts like a shock absorber, especially in weight-bearing joints and also helps to protects bones. As cartilage is lost this exposes the ends of bones.

While cartilage has no nerves, bone certainly does and can contribute to the pain we feel. In my experience, the benefits people feel in the first three-six months are more likely to be from reducing inflammation than any structural changes in the joint.

For example, I’ve been helping someone with osteoarthritis in a knee and a thumb. I created a personalised joint health programme that included high doses of Omega 3 fish oil and a double dose of my joint formula.

These higher doses delivered 1600mg of high grade chondroitin sulphate and glucosamine sulphate and 400mg of a 95 per cent pure curcumin extract from turmeric. After just three months her knee had improved to becoming largely pain-free and her thumb that caused a seven-out-10 discomfort is now a four-out-of-10 and continuing to improve.

John Arts (B.Soc.Sci, Dip Tch, Adv.Dip.Nut.Med) is a nutritional medicine practitioner and founder of Abundant Health Ltd. For questions or advice contact John on 0800 423559 or email: john@abundant.co.nz  Join his all new newsletter at: www.abundant.co.nz