Arthritis – slip ‘n slide

Well, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks. The increase to 12000IUs of Vitamin D3 has certainly had a beneficial effect. However, there are now a few strange niggling pains at night that I never had before. I suspect these are the result of me being much more active. I really do just get about these days. I will let this test run for two more weeks then revert to 8000IUs to see what happens. But this is my body. Yours may react differently. As I constantly say, no two bodies are alike. We each need our own level of… whatever. And of course the big question is, is Vitamin D3 a cure or a treatment for the symptoms? And if it’s a cure or a component of a cure how long does it take to make us arthritis free?

Could a cure for arthritis be that simple? Vitamin D3 and a proper diet? At this point, we have no idea because there have been no appropriate studies. The findings of Dr Colin H. Dong, Patrick Holford and Jerome Burne and Dr Steven R. Gundry deserve serious scientific study but… there’s no money in natural cures. So, we must do the work for ourselves.

Now, what does non-stick cookware have to do with arthritis? We don’t know. What we do know for sure is that diet is a major factor in the on-set and continuance of arthritis. And so is stress. These two primary areas deserve our full attention. Thousands of years ago people were suffering from arthritis so it’s not a huge leap to imagine there has to be a common factor or factors with today and the only reasonable factor is nutrition – or lack of it. We have had the health giving benefits of Vitamin D since day one, courtesy of our sun but the planet has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Yes there have been many and some fairly dramatic climate changes before humans ever walked the earth, and maybe arthritis boomed in the dark years. We simply don’t know because no one, as far as I know, has done any research. No money in it.

What doctors do not seem to understand, at least none that I have spoken with, is that dark skinned (tanned) and older people cannot absorb Vitamin D efficiently, which is why we oldies need supplements. (It is predominantly a white man’s disease.) If you have a healthy tan and getting on a bit, lying all day in the sun with your Kindle or reading the sports pages is not going to help. Is that another common factor? Is that why most people still think we get arthritis because it’s an age related thing? Well, I suppose in a sense it is but the underlying cause could simply be lack of Vitamin D3, which could well have affected people thousands of years ago. And I’m sure, given the conditions and survival conditions, the nasty boy stress was forever present. Has anyone researched that?

So where does non-stick cookware figure in all this? Non-stick pots and pans are covered in a substance called polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a man-made chemical accidentally invented in 1938 while Roy Plunkett was attempting to create a new refrigerant. It went on to be used in the making of the first atomic bomb. Teflon is the brand name most commonly associated with it but there are many others including Dupont and T-Fal. There have been recent studies showing that the safety of using Teflon is – at best – tenuous.

The bogey man is a substance called PFOA, (perfluorooctanoic acid) which is one of the thousands of chemicals that fall into the category of PFAS—per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They’re called “forever chemicals” because many persist for months or even years in our bodies and they break down very slowly, if ever, in the environment. PFOA, which has been studied more than most other related chemicals, raises particular concerns because it has been clearly linked to human health risks. It was used in the production of Teflon up until 2013 – theoretically. However, independent test have shown the substance can still be found in non-stick cookware today – despite industry claims to the contrary.

PFOA has been linked to a number of health conditions, including thyroid disorders, chronic kidney disease, liver disease, and testicular cancer. It has also been linked to infertility and low birth weight. What’s more, it was found in the blood of more than 98% of people who took part in the U.S. 1999–2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) It is also found in polar bears, human sperm and at ocean depths of 3,000 feet. So, it’s in the oceans. Meaning someone put it there. It did not walk to the sea and heave itself in.

All the medical problems linked to Teflon can be found at the root of many stress clusters and I know stress is a component in arthritis. When we are stressed what happens? Our chemical soup is badly interrupted and that affects hormone levels including Cortisol. When we suffer an overload of Cortisol, because the body is trying to help us, we get Cortisol rejection, which means we suffer pain! It’s all linked. The body is a complex, self-healing mechanism that pharmaceutical companies are constantly trying to convince us needs an ever-increasing supply of their drugs to keep functioning. It doesn’t… but you might prefer to believe the adverts. It’s easier.

I NEVER use non-stick cookware or utensils. Many years ago I read of the dangers. Much of that information has now disappeared and we could take a guess as to why. Cookware sales amounted to $2.7 billion in 2021, and more than half of that — $1.8 billion — was nonstick cookware, according to The NPD Group. That old destructor, the social cancer known as corporate money, is yet again dancing with the devil.

The major producers of these cookware items are spending a lot of money on glitzy advertising to convince us it’s all perfectly safe. Their bought-and-paid-for scientists say so. Same sort of bought-and-paid-for scientists who told women Thalidomide was perfectly safe…? However, of itself it might not be a cause but combined with poor nutrition it might be. No one has studied it so we don’t know. My motto? When in doubt, leave it out.

As you venture down the road of seeking your solution to your arthritis and your pain, record your good days and bad days. A simple technique that might help you identify the pain-causing patterns. Inappropriate cookware might be one of them. As the old adage goes, the devil is in the details. Pay attention to those details.