Can Smoothies Reduce Your Osteoarthritis Pain?
There are two ways you can make smoothies for arthritis: one way where your pain increases and another way where your pain is relieved.
This is true because your diet affects the production of inflammatory compounds in the body. Certain foods will increase inflammation while others won’t and some will even reduce inflammation. The foods that increase inflammation contain certain types of fats such as omega 6 that are linked with the biochemical pathway for inflammation.
As a result, it’s important to never add foods such as corn oil, soy oil, vegetable oil, shortening, or peanut oil to any of the smoothies you make. These oils have a chemical structure that leads to the production of free radicals. Most of them contain high amounts of omega 6 fats as well.
Foods That are Beneficial
On the opposite side of the picture are foods called eicosanoids, which decrease inflammation in the body. The more inflammation you have in the body, the more pain you’ll have. Inflammatory compounds will seek out the parts of the body that are weakened, such as your joints if you have arthritis.
By increasing anti-inflammatory chemicals in your body, you will end up with less pain in your joints. The anti-inflammatory chemicals will seek out all the places in the body that have inflammation and act upon them.
Some foods that contain antioxidants may decrease free radicals. One example of these types of foods is berries of all types. There are dozens of different antioxidants that may be found in fruits and vegetables. Once you start eating the foods with the antioxidants in them, you will experience less pain with arthritis.
Arthritis Buster Smoothie
Here is one smoothie recipe you can use to start experiencing that free radical quenching, anti-inflammatory action of foods:
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons coconut cream concentrate (this is thick coconut ‘mash’ similar to the consistency of peanut butter. It tastes good enough to eat with a spoon out of the jar.)
- ½ cup blackberries (may be frozen)
- ½ cup strawberries
- ¼ cup plain yogurt
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 handful almonds
- 1 leaf kale
- ¼ teaspoon chlorophyll
- 1 handful spinach
- 1 cup ice cubes
- 1 teaspoon chia seeds
Directions
Blend all ingredients in a blender.
What type of smoothie recipes can you create that will decrease the pain of arthritis? The answers and options are in the hundreds. All you have to do is commit to trying and start the process. Keep a journal so you will know which smoothies worked the best.