On Sat, 04 May 2013 14:36:29 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

On 04/05/2013 14:26, Terry Fields wrote:
On Sat, 04 May 2013 13:21:05 +0100, RayL12 wrote:

On 04/05/2013 1:06 PM, polygonum wrote:

Too much fruit can be a problem - all that fructose (and, indeed,
sucrose in some fruit).

Lots of vegetables can be problematical for some people - e.g those
which have goitrogenic effects.

And anyone with arthritis might like to try avoiding tomatoes and sweet
peppers.

Not heard that one before. Would you care to elaborate?

It started when I retired, quite a few years ago now. I resolved that my lunch was going to be a 'healthy' one.
SWMBO laid in every salad vegetable known to god and man, and every lunchtime I had a mountain of these,
with some tuna, peppered mackerel, hard-boiled egg, etc, but piled high with sweet peppers and tomatoes.

After three months I could hardly walk and my joints ached like there was no tomorrow.

After digging around, SWMBO came across a book on arthritis, which I had in a toe joint and finger joint but
which hadn't previously been a problem. Among other things it mentioned a connection between tomatoes,
sweet peppers, and arthritis, and so I stopped eating them. After some weeks things got better but not
completely so. I remember one time she made a super bolognese, but afterwards my toe and finger joints
tingled mightly and turned bright red. It turned out she'd used plenty of tomato puree...

Tomatoes belong to the Solanum family, which includes aubergines - these are known as 'nightshade' plants,
and one of these is 'deadly'. These contain solanine as a natural protection against insects, and in most of us
this is neutralised in the digestive system. However, it has been suggested that arthritis patients might lack this
digestive ability, and so solanine is absorbed with consequent negative affect on arthritic joints.

I don't have the book any longer and can't recall its title, so I'm unsure how sweet peppers got on the hit list, as
some research suggests these can help arthritis sufferers. If they do, then in my case they certainly didn't
overcome the effect of tomatoes.

If you know someone with arthritis, it might just be worth trying a tomato-free diet - a bit difficult in these salad
days. But the problem is deeper than that, as the digestion of red meats produces pro-inflammatory compounds
which might also antagonise compromised joints. Fish oils produce anti-inflammatories, which is why cod-liver
oil can help arthritis sufferers.

As a family we got in to foods and food additives when our very young daughter failed to thrive; it was only after
an extensive search - following being abandoned by the NHS - we were put in touch with a peadiatrician that
diagnosed a raft of food allergies. That focussed our minds on foods and their contents, which was useful later
when the arthritis showed up.

There's shedloads on the web about this, many sites seem cranky, but there's useful info out there too.

--
Terry Fields