The Basics:  Here are the basics you need to know about arthritis and what you can do to help eliminate arthritis pain.

Arthritis is an autoimmune disease.  If you treat the symptoms of arthritis (pain, swelling, stiffness, etc), you will always treat symptoms.

You must treat the cause of arthritis to control and eliminate the disease.  What you don’t know about arthritis can be painful.

Arthritis is an autoimmune disease caused when human collagen is exposed to the blood stream (injury, wear-out, etc).  Your autoimmune system attacks the ‘invader’ (human collagen) and the result is swelling, pain, etc.

Arthritis can be treated with Type II Undenatured Chicken Collagen.  Type II Undenatured Chicken Collagen is geometrically very close to the structure of human collagen – expose your immune system to the nearly identical geometrical structures, and, over time your body will accept the human collagen as a normal molecule of the human body.

The Details:  Continue reading to fully understand the nature of the disease and why you can make effective changes by treat the cause, not the symptoms.

Arthritis is a common degenerative joint disease that many people develop as you age.  In this blog, I am referring specifically to osteoarthritis, although many of the examples I use can be attributed to rheumatoid arthritis also.  In 2011, over 50 million people in the United States had osteoarthritis and/or rheumatoid arthritis.  Osteoarthritis has been considered to be an age-related, wear-out generated disease, whereas rheumatoid arthritis has been considered to be an autoimmune disease.  Current research indicates that both are autoimmune diseases and can be treated and controlled.

Arthritis can do structural damage to your joints and may lead to functional impairment and disability.  Excessive weight can exacerbate this disease in your weight-bearing joints.  Most treatments (corrective action) address reduction in activity of those joints involved and taking a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), such as acetaminophen.  All prescription drugs have side effects – acetaminophen and similar NSAIDs can damage your liver and kidneys, especially with high dosages and long-term treatment.  Traditional treatments do not address the cause of the disease, nor do they rebuild damage joint cartilage.

I am concerned about cause and effect.  Cause and effect is my specialty – my niche in health and wellness.  I research what happens in the human body at the cellular level – biochemically speaking.  If you don’t know what the cause of something is, how can you effectively treat it.  Treating symptoms does not fix the problem.  It may allow the problem to be resolved over time, and make you feel better because those annoying symptoms aren’t there to bother you; but the cause of the problem exists and may recur at any time.  Find out what the problem is and fix it.  Some things are much easier than others to fix once and for all – or, fix it each time it occurs and don’t suffer for long-term symptoms that can disrupt your life.

I research cause and effect and report what the data indicates.  As with everything in life, you are free to make whatever choices you desire regarding your health.  It amazes me constantly that when offered a solution for a problem, some people prefer to live with the symptoms than to take action to fix the cause.  Choices have consequences.

Your joints connect your skeleton together.  They are composed of a wear-resistant tissues called articular cartilage, some fibrous proteins called collagen, proteoglycans and chondrocytes that produce new cartilage.  The anatomical structure of most of your joints provide a smooth shock-absorbing, weight-distributing function for your skeletal bones to smoothly operate (walk, run, lift, etc.).  There are several different types of joints in your body and all of them have limited nerve connections and blood supply, and an inability to self-repair major damage.

Advanced age, gender, genetics, obesity, hormone vitamin and mineral deficiencies, repetitive motions, injury, loss of protein content, bone spurs and other factors can cause the protective cartilage to erode.  The more erosion, the worse the situation becomes.  Since there are not many nerve endings in your joints, it usually takes a lot of damage before you begin to feel any pain.  By then, the damage is usually extensive.  Arthritis can also affect joints with minimal to no weight being activities, such as you fingers.  Scientists speculate that lifestyle, diet, inflammation, insulin resistance, hypertension, diabetes and other related factors can generate the arthritic condition in these areas.

There are several metabolic dynamics that contribute to the progression of your arthritis.  Excessive inflammation, hormone deficiencies, arachidonic acid, oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction are interrelated and cause arthritis to worsen.  Inflammation is typically related to lifestyle choices and nutritional balance.  Arachidonic acid is a precursor to pain, swelling and related joint discomfort and damage.  As inflammation increases, the amount of arachidonic acid increases which causes more pain and suffering.

Each one of the cells in your body needs mitochondria to provide the necessary core energy to operate efficiently and effectively.  Age, inflammation and other factors cause your mitochondria to become less functional and result in arthritis gaining a stronger foothold in your joints.  Excess uncontrolled free radicals generate oxidative stress.  Dietary and nutritional choices can increase or decrease oxidative stress.  Estrogen deficiency typically happens with age.  There is a lot of evidence that estrogen deficiency contributes to the progression of arthritis.

Many doctors will tell you that there is no cure for osteoarthritis and they treat the symptoms – the pain and swelling associated with arthritis.  Some physicians may even recommend joint or physical therapy and exercise in combination with drugs for pain control.  Since rheumatoid arthritis is considered to be an autoimmune disease, doctors recommend treatment with corticosteroids, such as prednisone.  Prednisone, like all prescription medicines have side effects that are undesirable.  Prednisone, according to my research, has been associated with some life-threatening complications.

Chicken soup has been recommended by mothers for generations to ‘heal what ails you’.  Recent studies show that mothers might not have been that far off base in their treatment options.  Certainly, chicken soup is non-prescription and has little to no side effects.  In 2000, nutritional scientists discovered that chicken soup actually prevented or reduced the levels of inflammation associated with arthritic joints.  Further research found that the genesis of the arthritic autoimmune response in your body comes from the exposure of collagen.

Collagen is a molecule that is hidden from your body because of its physical location – hidden inside your joints.  Your immune system doesn’t physically recognize collagen when it is exposed to your blood stream.  As a result, it is viewed as a risk and your autoimmune response attacks the collagen so that it doesn’t affect your overall health.

A soluble component of chicken soup was found to prevent or inhibit the inflammatory response of your autoimmune system in attacking your collagen.  After extensive research, the component of chicken soup was discovered to be a form of undenatured type II chicken collagen.  The strength and effectiveness of the undenatured type II chicken collagen is dependent on the method of soup preparation.

It is the molecular structure of undenatured type II chicken collagen that actually begins the healing process for arthritis.  In order to shut down your autoimmune system, you have to train your immune system to recognize the geometric shape of the human collagen molecule.  Undenatured type II chicken collagen actually resembles the human collagen molecule very closely.  Close enough that your autoimmune system will stop attacking your collagen, thus stopping the progression of your arthritis.  It doesn’t happen overnight though.  It takes months for your body’s immune system to recognize and shift into a non-attack mode every time it encounters your human collagen.

If you can stop your immune system from creating the problem to start with, then you can treat the residual inflammation and joint damage.  You treat the cause of the autoimmune response and eliminate the from interfering with your overall therapy.  It wasn’t until 2011 that the autoimmune response was found to be present in both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Most disease starts out as low-level inflammation that is left unchecked.  Low-level inflammation can be detected in many cases by a simple highly sensitive c-reactive protein blood test.  If you keep your low-level inflammation under control, then you stand a good chance of preventing or reducing the severity of any disease you might encounter.

I have glossed over the specifics associated with many of the aspects of arthritis – its causes and treatments – in order to present this topic in a fairly easy to understand manner (although I know several of you would disagree).  The bottom line is that you need to stop the cause of the your autoimmune response before you can make any progress in treatment that works.

Google Type II Undenatured Chicken Collegen – it’s available from many sources – inexpensive and in pill form.  It takes your immune system about 90 days or more to fully recognize the geometric shape of the human collegen.  Once recognized, your immune system determines it is no longer a threat to you.  Once the source or cause of arthritis is under control, then you can treat the swelling, pain, etc effectively knowing that it will not return.

Inflammation can be treated with anti-inflammatories – prescription and natural.  I am not a medical professional and do not (and cannot) recommend any prescription or natural remedies.  I can make you aware of them – provide factual data.  You are responsible for you health and you need to be armed with the right questions and literature to help you and your doctor come up with the best plan of treatment for your specific needs.

Red O’Laughlin  aka The Prosperity Professor