Surprisingly Strong Arthritis Relief with Omega-3s

Arthritis is a silent, ugly, painful scourge on our society. Something like 46 MILLION people suffer from some form of arthritis, with a million of them being hospitalized due to their condition.  It doesn’t get a lot of press, but it’s nasty and causes a ton of people a ton of pain.

There’s a lot of different kinds of arthritis- the term “arthritis” just means “inflammation of the joint”.  The two main types are osteoarthritis (OA), also called Degenerative Joint Disease or DJD, and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  OA is wear and tear arthritis; it affects one joint at a time and is essentially caused by overuse.  Think of a marathon runner with no cartilage left in their knees.  That’s OA.

We’re going to talk about RA or rheumatoid arthritis in this post.  RA is a systemic disease, meaning it affects the entire body all at once, not just one joint. Actually, it doesn’t just affect the joints, but that’s where most people notice the symptoms.  The joints of the hands and wrists are commonly one of the most affected areas and can lead to severe deformity, leading to the fingers being twisted out of alignment.

The cause is autoimmune, which means that for some weird reason, the body’s immune system is attacking itself.  There’s a lot of autoimmune disorders out there, and all of them suck.  Seriously.  They’re extremely tough to deal with, mostly because Science and Medicine has pretty much no idea why this is going on in the first place.  Conventional medical treatments for RA are less than desirable; cortisone seems to work in the short-term, but has nasty long-term side effects.

Well, now that I’ve depressed you all, here’s some good news. A study done all the way back in the ’80s shows a dramatic improvement in symptoms when patients included 4.5 grams a day of fish oils along with their medications.  It took 14 weeks for this effect to kick in, but still, for anything to work on this nasty disease is fantastic.

There’s more. In the mid-90s, that same idea was tried again, except this time, they actually stopped the medications and switched to all fish oils.  Here’s how it worked.  They started people off with taking their meds and also taking a bunch of either fish oil capsules, or corn oil capsules (to use as a control group).  After about five months, the researchers then stopped giving people their meds, and gave them a fake sugar pill instead, those tricksters.

In the fish oil group, people felt a lot better… even after coming off of their medication!  The corn oil group… not so much.  The fish oil group’s improvements remained even after coming off of their medication for eight weeks, which is pretty incredible.

It wasn’t just symptoms.  RA has some chemical markers which you can objectively measure; the fish oil group had significantly decreased levels of these markers as well as reduced symptoms.  So it wasn’t just all in their heads.

Quick side note:  these people were taking MAJOR doses of fish oils, like nine or ten grams a day.  That’s a bunch.

Okay, so how the heck can this be?  How can fish oils make such a major dent in such an ugly disease?  Well, pull up a chair, kids, because Healthy Andy is going to lay it all out for you.

First, let’s go quickly over inflammation, since arthritis of all kinds is all about inflammation.  Remember from previous posts that inflammation is the very beginning process of healing, and so, it’s very necessary for your health.  It kick-starts not only the tissue repair part of healing, but also the immune response.

After all, historically speaking, infections were the A Number One big killer of the human race.  Before antibiotics came along, if you got a cut, you were in serious trouble of dying from an infection.  So, your body is hard-wired to over-react when it comes to potential infectious threats.  Any sign of injury, and your immune response is on the scene, pronto, to make sure your body isn’t going to be over-run by any invading organisms.

Your Omega-3 to Omega-6 balance is a big part of how strong your inflammatory response is.  Remember, these are the two major kinds of Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs), fats that your body needs to do its business.  EFAs form some of the chemical messengers involved in the whole process of inflammation; Omega-6s create a strong inflammatory response, Omega-3s, a weak inflammatory response.

When the two kinds of EFAs are in balance, all is well in the world and the degree of inflammatory response stays appropriate to the threat.  Weak threat?  Weak response.  Strong threat?  Strong response.

The problem arises when you have an imbalance, like pretty much everybody in Western society does.  We should have a 1:1 ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6.  Of course, we don’t.  Not even close.  It’s more like 30:1 in favor of Omega-6.

Now, we have a situation where all we can do is over-react to every potential threat, because all we have is a strong response.  It’s kind of like having a tool chest but only owning a sledgehammer.  If you have to hang a picture on the wall, and you only own a sledgehammer, your interior decorating isn’t going to win any awards.

So, knowing this, it’s not to hard to see how taking Omega-3 supplements like fish oils can help with inflammatory conditions.  Now that we restore the balance between a strong Omega-6 response and weak Omega-3 response (or at least, get closer to balance), we put a whole assortment of tool in our body’s tool chest, from a tack hammer on up.  The inflammatory response now becomes more appropriate, either weak or strong or anywhere in between, and we don’t end up pounding holes in the drywall from trying to hang a picture with a sledgehammer.

Since an autoimmune condition like RA is basically inflammation on overdrive, all of the time, it’s going to respond to a return to balance like I just described.  Now, your immune system isn’t going to attack anything and everything in sight with crazed machine-gun fire, including you.  Instead, it’s more likely to respond appropriately, and leave your body tissues alone and stick to killing actual foreign invaders with a surgical sniper rifle shot.

By the way, that guy that did those two studies I was talking about earlier recommends dosing at three to six grams of EPA and DHA total (that’s the active ingredients of fish oil) a day for at least twelve weeks to see if this kind of supplementation will help rheumatoid arthritis.  I’d stick on the high side of that to be certain.  You’re going to need to work up to taking that much gradually, so start with a capsule or two and work your way up from there.

Of course, if you’re considering any of this, be sure to do it under the supervision of your doctor.  More and more MDs are becoming open to the idea of natural therapies supplementing convential therapies, particularly if the condition is stubborn and nasty like rheumatoid arthritis is.

Hit me up with some comments or questions, and share this info with your friends… you never know who could benefit from it!

Stay healthy!