What Is Arthritis?

Arthritis is the inflammation of a joint and it's surrounding tissues, including the cartilage, ligaments, and tendons. Arthritis can be caused by numerous dis-ease states and chemistry imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, genetic disorders, and over-use (wearing-out) of the joints. The joints most often affected with arthritis are found in the back and spine, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, hips, knees, ankles, and toes. The most common symptoms of arthritis include painful, limited movement in the affected joint(s), swelling of the joints, increased heat and redness in surrounding tissues, and a dry, crackling sensation or sound emanating from the affected joint.

What Causes Arthritis?

Arthritis can be caused by many factors. Nutritional deficiencies leading to arthritis usually involve calcium depletion, or a diet poor in fresh vegetables and high in acid and mucous-producing foods. Arthritic conditions can also be related to unbalanced body chemistry (acid pH), imbalances of the body's glands and the hormones they produce, genetic (family) history, allergic reactions to foods, auto-immune reactions (when the body's immune system attacks itself), and stressful lifestyles or environments. Other common causes include osteoporosis (thinning of the bones), and long-term use of anti-arthritic drugs and over-the-counter pain medications. Anabolic steroids, used by some body builders, can lead to arthritis-like degeneration of the joints. Finally, overuse of any joint in the body can cause the wearing down of the cartilage between two bones (osteoarthritis) or instability of the joint.

The following is extracted from the magazine 'Arthritis Today' 

Coral calcium : a triumph of marketing hype or of genuine benefit to people with arthritis? If several dozen readers of Arthritis Today are to be believed, a new, rather expensive product has taken over from its rivals as the current "miraculous" substance which radically reduces arthritic pain.

Coral calcium appears to be top of the popularity stakes, beating the likes of green lipped mussel extract, and glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate by a short head.

So what exactly is coral calcium? According to the company which sells the stuff in the UK, it's collected from a coral reef around the Japanese islands of Okinanawa and Tocunoshima before being washed, sterilised, processed and sent off around the world. The local population of the islands have very low incidences of illness, it's said, which is attributed to the natural elements in the water.

The coral is also said to raise the body's alkaline content and improve the auto-immune system. Users buy the product in sachet form, and drink it sprinkled in water.

Some people swear by its healing properties. Ever since a retired vet wrote in to The Hints Box, extolling the properties of coral calcium, and the effects it had had on his wife, an osteoarthritis sufferer for more than 20 years, and his dogs - others have taken up their pens with similar stories.

Julie Michaels, a nail technician from Watford who has osteoarthritis, found the pain in her hands and wrists subsided after just two weeks. 

Leonard Walker, a 48-year-old former track athlete turned physiotherapist from Stanmore who now runs two sports injuries clinics in London and Gibraltar, developed osteoarthritis after a cartilage operation five years ago.

He took all kinds of conventional therapies, but eventually got to the stage where he could hardly walk. A doctor friend recommended coral calcium, and eight weeks later the pain reduced to such an extent that he can now play golf and runs every day. He recommends the product to his own patients, and has found a big improvement in about 75% of them.

John Spencer's story is similar. The 76-year-old from Barnet could no longer play golf or do the gardening. "Six weeks after taking it, I am 80% improved," he says. "I would shout over the rooftops about this, as over the years my GP has given me only anti-inflammatory pills, which I can no longer take."

It should also be borne in mind that in rheumatoid arthritis the placebo effect can be as high as 40%. Patients may go through a period of natural remission from their arthritis, yet attribute it, maybe inaccurately, to whatever substance they are taking at the time.

There is no controlled research studies done with Coral calcium and arthritis but the problem is that the BMA is terribly reluctant to give credence to any complementary therapies and it would take years and cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to set up trials. Much cheaper and simpler is to turn to the hundreds of letters of people who take coral calcium and find it works for them. 

Readers will have to make up their own minds! 


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