Your RA Gets Worse Because of This One Food

Introduction to RA Food Controversies 0:00

If you have rheumatoid arthritis and you are scared to enjoy your meal, you're scared that the food that you were eating into your mouth might be causing your rheuma arthritis flare. In today's video, I'm going over all the controversial food in rheumatoid arthritis and RA flares. Please stick around and at the end of the video I'll give you some practical tips that you can use every day not to get scared with your food rather than enjoy it. Hello all of you Rheumatoarthritis Warrior, this is Dr.

Ananda Subedi, your rheumatologist coach at the RoomDoc, as well as a practicing rheumeatologists here in Cary, North Carolina at The Empowered Arthritics and Rhematology Center. In the video today, I'm going over the next episode. The next Episode on what are the food controversies in rheuma to arthritis. in our previous video, we've talked about what other food we need to avoid. And in this video I'll go over some of those controversie that you might have seen in the Now, as you start learning about what are the food that you should eat, what other food you could avoid to manage and prevent your rheumatoid arthritis flare, you might go to the internet.

You might to go YouTube to watch a channel or to what's a video and you hear so many different things and it's very confusing. Even for us, I have learned so much about rheumatoid arthritis and the food associated with those conditions. I sometimes get confused and I had to do some deep research into those areas to understand what is the fact and what the fiction is. And unfortunately, this area has been filled with a lot of controversies.

Seven Diet Topics to Cover 1:35

Now, those controversie are not going to help you. They are going make you more confused. That's why I created this video to take away those confusion and clear those controversy. And as I mentioned in the previous video, doing research in rheumatoid arthritis and food is challenging. So some of the data that I got may not be robust. They may be big data, but at least give us some guidance on how should we eat, what should be our diet that can help and prevent your rheuma arthritis flares. Now, before I go deeper, don't forget to like and subscribe our videos so that more of you rheuomatoids arthritis warriors can get those videos and for 2026 we are in the first week of 20-26 so we're creating some big goals for our channel and with your support we hope to reach at least 100,000 RA warriors like you and our goal is simple, our Goal is to Reach those 100K RA Warriors who are confusion related to these topics of rubectrionphitis and other controversial topics.

And through our channel, our goal is to clear those confusion. So please subscribe to our Channel, like this video and share this to someone you know who might have rheumatoid arthritis that can help them clear that

Plant-Based vs Animal-Based Diets 2:51

confusion Now let me jump into the main content for today and I have highlighted seven important controversies in food and rheumatoid arthritis. And let me list those first and we'll go over one by one in further detail. So the number one I listed is plant-based versus animal diet. The next one is gluten containing diet, the third one, is a controversy around do you consume dairy product or not? What is the role of dairy products in rheumatoid arthritis flares? The fourth one is night shade vegetables.

There are a group of vegetables which are we call nightshade vegetables, which in some cases are known to cause rheuma arthritis flare. So we'll be talking about what are those controversies related with the nightside vegetables? And the fifth one, is a rule of fasting. There are so many different forms of fasting such as intermittent fasting and more prolonged fasting. So we learn about what is the role? What is a controversial topic about RA and fasting? And the other sixth topic is you might have heard this in the internet.

It's called detox. You might've heard some of the experts claiming that they treated or cured rheumatoid arthritis by these detoxes. And the last but not the least is the elimination diet, where the thought is to eliminate certain type of food that could help treat rheumatoid arthritis or rheuma arthritis flair. So we'll be talking about these seven controversies in rheoma arthritis and RA flares. Now let's start with the first controversy. The controversy, the war between plant-based diet and the animal-base diet.

You might have seen two camps. One camp which says absolutely plant based diet could treat rheumatoid arthritis and there's other team we call animal based-diet team. And if you remember, I have also made a video regarding a debate between animal based and plant based diet in the earlier video, you can refer to those video for further detail. But there's a big controversy between plant-based diet versus the animal- based. And the summary of that debate is it depends. It depends on what type of food you are consuming, both in plant base and animal base diet category.

quality of food is more important than what type of you are consuming. But in general, rheumatoid arthritis do well on predominantly plant-based diet.

Gluten-Free Diet and Sensitivity 5:13

If you consume predominantly a plant based diet, that is typically a better way of eating in rheuptoide arthritis as well as flare management. Now that does not mean that you have to be vegan. but just be mindful about the type of food you are eating. But if you can follow a predominant plant-based diet, that is better for your overall rheumatoid arthritis treatment. Now, in general, the plant based diet also has less of the harmful substances. For example, high cholesterol, processed food, those are much less in plant base category.

That's why it is a better way of eating in General and as well as for rheuma to arthritis. Now in animal-based diet, the type of food you eat is more important. If you lean meat such as chicken or fish, that is a good source of protein and that's good for rheumatoid arthritis and flares. But you need to minimize highly processed meat, such bacon, sausages, Those are the compounds. Those aren't the meat that has unhealthy compound as I have discussed in the earlier video. So if we eat animal based diet, try to do higher quality, better quality meat rather than processed meat.

To summarize, plant versus animal, the type of food you eat is more important than whether it's just the absolutely plant based versus absolutely animal-based diet. A high quality meet is Now, the second controversy is around the use of gluten-containing diet. Now while I was trying to understand this diet, I did find this research. This was a research that was done in 2001 where they compared two group of people. The first group was people who were vegan and went gluten free and there were other group where the have a balanced diet including the gluten.

And when they compare this group, What they found was people who were categorized or in the group one where they just ate vegan and gluten-free diet, they did overall better at the end of the study, suggesting that by this time, six to 12 weeks time people were on gluten free diet. They did better compared to the other group who are eating gluten. That's why this study suggested that gluten free might be a better way of eating for rheumatoid arthritis. But the question is how long you can sustain staying gluten-free.

Is it sustainable? And other question, is the gluten truly the problem in your case? So in that case, what I suggest my patient is trying to go gluten-free for a couple of weeks and understand how you do with your rheumatoid arthritis. If you get less rheumeatoide arthritis symptoms and less rheumate arthritis flare when you go off gluten, it might be best for you to on gluten free diet. But if you don't feel any symptomatic difference, then it may not be worth doing it long term.

Dairy Products in Rheumatoid Arthritis 8:10

That's why a trial of gluten-free diet might be worth it. And all very important is also understand any gastrointestinal symptoms when you consume any gluten containing food. Let's suppose if you eat bread that has gluten and you have this gastointesinal symptom such as diarrhea. you are having bloating and other gastrointestinal symptoms that might suggest that you might have gluten sensitivity and in that case you may ask your rheumatologist or your primary care doctor to run a test to see whether you have celiac disease or not.

Now if you celiac disease then it's very important for you to be gluten free. But if your blood test does not suggest you have celiac disease, you may not need to do those. Now there is one other caveat. The caveat is some of our patients, they could also have what we call non-celiac gluten sensitivity. And what does that mean? Non-celiac gluten sensibility mean you might not be able to tolerate gluten containing food. You might get some gastrointestinal symptoms when you consume gluten-containing diet.

But when your doctor tests you for celiac disease the test could be negative. So you can think of the non-celiac gluten sensitivity as your body is not able to tolerate, but you have not yet been diagnosed with celiac disease. Your blood test could be negative. In that situation, what happens is when you eat gluten-containing food, you might get gastrointestinal symptoms. I do also recommend staying off of gluten if possible, and that might help decrease your gastric symptoms as well as rheumatoid arthritis symptoms Tracking those symptoms when you consume gluten-containing diet and see how you feel when go off of gluten might be the best way to understand what is the role of the gluten in your health and rheumatoid arthritis.

The third controversial topic in rheuma and food is dairy products. In general, most of our patients, they do well even consuming dairy product. But there are some few rules that I would recommend you to follow.

Nightshade Vegetables and Flare Concerns 10:11

The first one is always try to consume fermented dairy products such as yogurt, which is kind of a mildly anti-inflammatory and also help improve your gastrointestinal symptoms. and increasing weight might worsen your rheumatoid arthritis because of excess weight. Hence, consuming low-fat dairy product is more important than the regular milk. The third one is some of my patients, they may not be able to tolerate dairy products. When they consume dairy, product they have this diarrhea. They also get bloating.

So for those, it might suggest that you are not able do tolerate daily products, so in those cases, having a dairy free trial is a good idea. the other one is as I mentioned earlier if you consume a lot of high fat dairy product and high volume it might increase your weight and it may be trigger for inflammation so the dairy in itself is controversial because it's not universal to everybody some people some patients they can tolerate dairy products other may not be able to tolerate the daily products so it depends Now the next controversial food in rheumatoid arthritis and flare include the night seed vegetables and it includes the tomatoes, potatoes, pepper and eggplant.

So some of my patients, they do tell me that when they consume these night-seed vegetables, the the day they feel a little more painful. They feel little bit more achy and even might get mild RA flare. but this is not universal. And when I look at the scientific theory behind why that happens, there is one chemical that many of these night-set vegetables have is called Solanine. Now, particularly those night set vegetables that have turned green. For example, if you eat a potato, If the potato has turned Green, it might have a higher amount of Solenine, so if You consume those green potatoes, It will make sense.

It'll make since that they might cause RA flares. But if you consume normal nightshade vegetables, not everybody will get RA flair. That's why it is a little more of a controversial topic whether consuming night shade vegetable might cause RA flare or not. Now, when I was doing the research on this topic, I found a mouse study. It's not humans, but mouse studies which suggested that Solanine can cause damage to your gut lining causing colitis. And when you read more about rheumatoid arthritis, diet and flair, there's one term you will hear very common in internet or in the YouTube is a leaky gut, which is controversial topic in itself.

Now, what the thought is when eat inflammatory food such as nights and vegetables, it can cause leaki gut and that can caused inflammation in your body. And as you recall, rheumatoid arthritis itself is an inflammatory disease where you have chronic inflammation. And when you eat this inflammatory food that can cause leaky gut, that could worsen your rheuatoide arthritis symptoms. Now, the leeky gut theory is more of a theoretical concept. We do not have any robust studies suggesting that these nightshade vegetables universally will cause a leachy cut.

But the mouse study suggested that there was colitis when the mice were given the nightshade vegetables. So that might be one of the reasons why many of our RA warriors they get concerned about having flair when they consume nightside vegetables Now, what I suggest typically to my patients is to try a trial for two weeks. So for 2 weeks, try to go off of the nightshade vegetables and slowly reintroduce one by one and see how you feel. If you fell when you consume these night-shad vegetables, you are having more pain, your having a flare and when go of your flare might get better.

That could indicate that your body may not be tolerating these type of night shade vegetables. if that's the case, it might be better for you to not consume this night shed vegetables But one of the caveat is some of these nightshade vegetables might be a good source of fiber. They might also be some anti-inflammatory.

Wrap-Up and Free Resources 14:08

That's why it's not universally recommended to go off of nightside vegetables. So it depends on your response. Try for a couple of weeks, see how you feel. Then you can go of or reintroduce these type of vegetables Rheumatoid arthritis warrior, I hope you are learning about these controversies on food and rheumatitis, and I tried my best to collect this scientific data to look into what is really happening, to find the truth about this controversy regarding rheumaoide arthritis and diet. If you like this video so far, please give us a thumbs up.

share it with someone who might have rheumatoid arthritis and please help us reach our big goal at the room doc of reaching up to 100,000 RA warriors by the end of 2026 and you can support us by liking our video, sharing the video and telling your other friends and family who are in confusion regarding what to eat and what not to. and also a reminder to accept our free gift for 2026, that is free holistic rheumatoid arthritis guidebook, which you can find in the description below. And I have also created a recipe of a smoothie that you prepare every morning that has all good anti-inflammatory components.

So don't forget to download that recipe that can be used every day to create an anti inflammation routine when you start your day. Thank you so much to all of you rheumatoid arthritis warriors watching this video on the controversies of food and rheuma arthritis. Now, this is a big topic, so I have divided this into two parts. This is the first part and I'll be continuing on to the next topic and we'll talk a few other topics or a couple of other topic that are still remaining. So I will create another video for those remaining topics.

Don't forget to watch that next video where we will be talking more about the controversy in rheoma arthritis and the diet. Now till that time, I hope you are enjoying the 2026 and then don't forget to like and subscribe our videos so that more of you RA warriors can find these videos and also accept our gift of free holistic rheumatoid arthritis guidebook as well as a free recipe and I'll see you in the next video. Bye bye.