Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

continentalgrip t1_iu78vbh wrote

Reply to comment by PaulHaman in Newly discovered species of bacteria in the microbiome may be a culprit behind rheumatoid arthritis by geoxol

Google fasting and psoriatic arthritis. Lots of positive results. Probably starves the bacteria. Known to work well with RA also. True North in California (largest supervised fasting clinic in the world) reports success especially with 3 main diseases: hypertension, type 2 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.

20

PaulHaman t1_iu7ah5t wrote

Thanks, I'll pass it along to her.

10

CrazyCatLushie t1_iu7kp1u wrote

Just to offer a counterpoint as a person living with psoriatic arthritis… hunger exacerbates the pain. Badly. I have no appetite because of the medications I take and I always know it’s time for a meal or snack based on my pain level. There’s a direct correlation.

Fasting can be very stressful on the body and we already do it for 8ish hours a day naturally, which is plenty. Please don’t believe the pseudo-scientific hype.

38

KtheCamel t1_iu8adxz wrote

Thank you. I am sure their sister DOES NOT want to hear some random person on the internet's opinion on how to "cure" her disease.

10

zyl0x t1_iu8pxty wrote

So you're going to cancel out one random person's advice with another person's random anti-advice?

How about you take the advice and go and verify it yourself?

5

CrazyCatLushie t1_iu8r31c wrote

One person’s random, unsolicited advice versus the lived experience of a person with the disease in question. Not quite the same.

1

zyl0x t1_iu8sifw wrote

That's a long way of saying "anecdote". I just encouraged someone to do their own research. Are you saying they should just trust you?

1

CrazyCatLushie t1_iu8uwbl wrote

I’m saying the lived experiences of marginalized, disabled, and chronically ill people should be given some weight, yes. Certainly more weight than some person clearly advertising a specific clinic that peddles unproven methods for a completely different diagnosis.

Also, some more free emotional labour for you: disabled and chronically ill people are constantly accosted with unsolicited medical advice. This is a common experience and one that is not at all helpful.

3

zyl0x t1_iud50bw wrote

I am chronically ill and disabled, so I don't know why you think that all other chronically ill people must agree with you.

2

CrazyCatLushie t1_iud5dz2 wrote

I don’t think that and I never said I did. Since you’re so clearly dedicated to misunderstanding me, let’s go ahead and end this interaction, shall we? Have a nice day.

0

zyl0x t1_iud5mjh wrote

Give weight to the opinions of chronically ill people, except me, because I don't agree with your opinion. Yeah, have a good one.

1

YumariiWolf t1_iu8zwhz wrote

I don’t have PA or RA but I have had pretty intense joint pain from complications from multiple Lyme infections and I can say fasting has changed my life. You are conflating daily hunger triggering pain vs a systemic, long term change. There is a ton of evidence that exists and continues to be added to that the longer you put you body into autophogy the better results there are for things like inflammatory and immune diseases. Also the more your body produces glucagon vs insulin over the long term has been a significant factor in my reducing inflammation in my body. I have like 90% less joint pain now than I did 2 years ago. Again not a direct correlation but if you want the lived experience of someone who has done it long term and isn’t just baiting some hype article online then here it is. I’ve also had long conversations with my doctor about fasting and the biological mechanisms it triggers to reduce inflammation system wide and how he has seen significant results across the swath of patients that he’s recommended it to to help with certain conditions. I went in for blood work to make sure fasting wasn’t causing any problems and had a pleasant surprise that my doctor supported it, he never brought it up unprompted.

5

CrazyCatLushie t1_iu930yh wrote

You’re literally promoting disordered eating. I’m glad you’ve found some relief but the dangers far outweigh the potential benefits for most people.

−1

jlesnick t1_iu95p32 wrote

I don’t know that’s it’s pseudoscience. They’ve been using fasting as treatment for a long time in parts of western and Eastern Europe. Doctors prescribe it and the national insurances cover it. The reason it’s not caught steam here in the US is partially because of how our healthcare system works. There’s no incentive for anyone to produce work and trials showing that fasting works or helps multiple conditions, and therefore insurance won’t cover it.

2

purple_baron t1_iua8hjp wrote

It's essential that we separate the pseudoscience from actual science, but "national insurance covers it" is not sufficient evidence. After all, the UK covered homeopathic treatments up until recently (and may still, I remember an item in the news that that status may have changed, but couldn't find it quickly).

1

jlesnick t1_iui50gb wrote

I agree with you that pseudoscience needs to be separated from actual science, but there's a lot of science behind fasting. There was a good documentary I saw about it on Amazon. If I remember they were mentioning that the USSR had done tons of studies on it but most of those studies never got translated to English which seems like a tragedy. The USSR was serious about science and imagine how much knowledge we are missing out on.

Anyways, if you do a google search you will see lots of studies on longterm fasting and it's heath benefits.

2

[deleted] t1_iu8ndyn wrote

[deleted]

2

continentalgrip t1_iu8r8lj wrote

You have done prolonged fasts and your symptoms immediately came back when you broke the fast? That isn't what True North, the premier supervised fasting clinic reports, though they were just referring to rheumatoid.

0