Gout Cures|Fish Oil

3 Ways Fish Oil Helps Get Rid of Gout

This blog is dedicated to finding natural gout cures you can use to help you overcome painful attacks. One of the best ways to do this is to take a supplement of fish oil. Fish oil is a great natural remedy for gout pain for a variety of reasons.

Today, we will discuss 3 of them.

Fish oil reduces swelling

Fish oil has been found to be as effective as ibuprofen and aleve for reducing swelling in joints. Most of gout pain comes from the swelling in your joints. By reducing this swelling, you can reduce your painful gout symptoms.

Fish oil is great for your heart

Fish oil has long been noted to be beneficial in helping prevent or slow down heart disease. I personally used a fish oil supplement every day long before I found out it can help with gout.

By increasing the health of your heart, you will be more likely to exercise more often and reduce your weight. Seeing how being overweight is a major problem among gout patients, fish oil can be beneficial. Also, gout sufferers are at a higher risk of heart disease due to usually being overweight.

I highly recommend that you don't go to just any store and get fish oil. Lower grade fish oil can contain metals so you will want to get a higher grade distilled fish oil that gets the metals out of the oil.

As for whether you should take a liquid versus capsule it is a personal choice. I personally take a capsule. If you wish to take the liquid but are not thrilled with sucking down the oil, Carlson's has a high quality fish oil that has lemon flavoring added to it to help you get it down.

A great resource for other useful supplements that help with reducing swelling can be found at alternative cures. Terry has a great blog on alternative methods of curing diseases and has a link on the post to a place you can get high quality health supplements.

Lastly,

Fish Oil helps heal damaged joints

Again, gout patients tend to be overweight and the excess weight, plus the multiple episodes of gout attacks can destroy your joints.

Fish oil has been found to help heal damaged joints which will enable you to exercise and lose weight. Be sure to see your physician before you start exercising.

Give fish oil a try. I use it every day.

Until later,

Medic

Get Rid of Gout|Why Improved Health is Vital to Get Rid of Gout

Simple Gout Cures Any Determined Person Can Do

If you are serious about getting rid of gout, you simply cannot downplay the importance your overall health plays in your ability to treat this arthritic disease. Most people who have attacks are generally overweight, and their diet contains very unhealthy foods which contribute to high uric acid levels, the chief cause of gout symptoms.

Gout (hyperuricemia) is caused by either overloading your body with purines to the point your body is not able to deal with the excess uric acid produced by the high purine content or by your kidneys not being able to properly eliminate even normal levels of purines.

So How do You Improve Your Health?

Proper diet and exercise are crucial gout treatments if you truly want to improve your health and get rid of gout.

Proper diet

Lowering your intake of high purine foods goes to the heart of what causes gout. Many high purine foods are high in fat and deter your ability to lose weight effectively. Common high purine foods are hamburgers, hot dogs, and bacon. We all know these foods would never make a list of foods to help you improve your health. Decrease your amount of these foods or better yet, eliminate them altogether.

Drinking multiple sodas a day increases your risk of gout by 50%. The empty calories also add to your weight problem, further increasing your risk of gout by putting more stress on your kidneys. Not to mention, high sugar content has been linked with increased risk of cancer.

Diet sodas hinder weight loss. They have been found to increase your hunger and some health experts believe that diet sodas are even worse than drinking regular sodas, especially due to increased risk of cancer from the chemicals used in most diet soft drinks. Bottom line: get rid of soda. Drink water instead.

You can keep the coffee. 4-6 cups of coffee was found in a Canadian study to lower uric acid levels by 50%. Decaffeinated coffee was also found to lower uric acid. I personally drink organic Green Mountain decaffeinated coffee. I use my own grinder and grind the grounds at home.

You don't have to make wholesale changes all at once. In fact, this usually proves disastrous to long term health as most people quit due to the difficulty of making large lifestyle changes in a short time. A very easy goal to reach is one pound a week.

By doing just a few things a little at a time, you will help improve kidney function, reduce the stress load on your renal system, which will have the added benefit of reducing your risk of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. The benefits far outweigh the risks.

There are many alternative and natural methods of improving your overall health through diet. A great site to check out is Terry Didcott's site on alternative cures. His article on alternative cures for acne should not be overlooked by gout sufferers. The same diet problems contributing to acne also contribute to increased gout problems. His research on his site is solid and informative. He also has good articles on arthritis. Gout is a form of arthritis.

Exercise

Exercise gives me fits due to the extensive history I had of serious gout attacks. I have had numerous attacks in both feet, ankles, knees, and especially my left wrist (this really stinks since I am left handed). Ironically, I have only ever had one attack in my big toe, the most common place to have gout.

I hardly ever have gout attacks anymore, but I do have a hard time exercising. Lack of exercise makes it hard for me to lose excess weight. Gout ravaging my joints is one of the reasons I decided I had to find a way to prevent any future attacks.

I have finally found a way to exercise. My friend is a physical therapist, and he is helping me overcome this problem. When your joints are damaged, he stated your blood supply doesn't heal your joints, synovial fluid does. He has designed easy exercises for me to increase the amount of fluid going to my joints without adding stress to them until they are healed enough to start strengthening them.

Conclusion

Proper diet and exercising wisely will not only help improve your joint and kidney health, but will help your overall health and getting rid of gout pain. If you choose not to lose weight, you can still reduce your painful symptoms, but your alternatives are mostly prescription medications. I, however, prefer to use natural gout treatments methods over medications.

Until later,

Medic

Should You Use Cherries for Gout?

Why Cherries are Vital to Your Gout Treatments Plan

This is the last installment of our Natural Gout Treatments series focusing on fruits and how they treat gout. This gout treatments series started with pineapples and now we are going to finish with the king of therapies for gout and arthritis, cherries.


What makes cherries potent in their ability to get rid of gout?

First up is quercitin. Quercitin helps get rid of gout by preventing swelling. It prevents swelling by inhibiting the release and production of histamine. Histamine causes inflammation. You see this a lot in people with severe allergic reactions. That is one of the reasons why those who have minor allergic reactions are told to use Benadryl, because it is an antihistamine.

There is a total of 3mg of quercitin in sweet cherries with a significant more amount in tart cherries.

You can also take quercitin as a supplement, but do not do this if you are on antibiotics. Make sure you tell your physician if you are taking quercitin so you can avoid any unnecessary complications from antibiotics.

Anthocyanins

Anthocyanins are what cause the dark colors in cherries. Anthocyanins are plentiful in cherries. "Twenty cherries provide 25 milligrams of anthocyanins, which help to shut down the enzymes that cause tissue inflammation in the first place, so cherries can prevent and treat many kinds of pain," says Muraleedharan Nair, the lead researcher on the cherry project at Michigan State University. The anthocyanins also may protect artery walls from the damage that leads to plaque build up and heart disease. In fact, the latest research shows that anthocyanins do a better job of protecting arteries than vitamins C and E.

--Wang, H. et al. 1999 Anti-oxidant and Anti-inflammatory Activities of Anthocyanins and their Alglycon, Cyanid, from Tart Cherries. Journal of Natural Products 62(2): 294-296.


There are approximately 80-300mg of anthocyanins in pitted darker varieties of cherries so you may want to eat darker cherries more frequently than lighter varieties of cherries.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C has been a recurring theme in this series as all the foods in that have been mentioned contain Vitamin C. Read about how vitamin C is one of the best treatments for gout and how it is essential to helping you get rid of gout. Cherries contain 7mg of vitamin C per serving.

Fiber

Another reason using cherries for gout is beneficial is due to fiber. Fiber helps you in your fight to lose weight which is a common factor with those who have gout symptoms. The average serving of cherries contains 2g of fiber. While this is not a huge amount ( recommended daily dose of fiber is 24g), it will get you started.


Cherry facts

Michigan produces 70-75% of all tart cherries in the United States with Montmerency cherries being the most harvested. I use King Orchard's Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate, also out of Michigan (2 oz. per day on average) as part of my gout treatments regimen except for mid-summer when cherry fruit stands come out in force. Then I eat all the fresh cherries for gout I can handle. The fresh cherries make a nice break from drinking the cherry juice. If you don't like cherry juice, another option is to take cherry concentrate in pill form.

For more information on cherries, here is an informative article on cherries and their great natural pain killing abilities. The source is from one of the great writers for "Mike the Health Ranger" at naturalnews.com. I am a regular reader of Mike's and if you are into natural remedies for whatever ails you or concerns you, I very highly recommend his site.

How effective is Cherry Juice for Gout?

Cherry juice is very effective for all the gout causes that we are aware of. I use cherry juice concentrate all the time. As long as the company you choose has quality cherries it will not matter which product you use. I personally have used Michelle's Cherry juice and King's cherry juice for gout and both have worked very well. I did not notice any difference in their effectiveness.

How much should you use? I use the concentrated formula because it is much cheaper. It can be around 7-8 dollars for a regular cherry juice and the same sized concentrated juice can cost around 19-20 dollars. That is quite the savings. A regular bottle will last me a day or two, while the concentrate will last me around a month. I simply pour 1-2 oz. in a regular sized glass and fill it full of water. If you use a small glass the cherry flavor can be a bit overwhelming. I do this once in the morning and once at night. If I feel that a gout attack is imminent or am feeling "twinges" I take another glass during the day. I believe cherry juice and gout go hand in hand if you want to get rid of the pain associated with this disease.

Which cherries should I choose?

Tart cherries for gout seem to have the most scientific basis for usage. Darker varieties have more anthocyanins so that is something to consider as well. Ultimately, they all will work fairly well. I personally usually use montmorency cherries.

Conclusion

When it comes to cherries and gout, whether you use tart cherries, bing cherries, or black cherries for gout, they are worth their weight in gold when it comes to gout remedies for this very painful type of arthritis. From helping with inflammation to lowering uric acid levels, they are the complete package. If you have gout and cherries are not part of your gout cures arsenal, make them part of it today.



Until later,

Medic