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Natalie
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Osteoarthritis of the knee joint is a disease that requires constant adjustment of the diet. If the pathology is caused by metabolic disorders, chondrocalcinates and uric acid crystals accumulate in the joint cavity.
To control them, remove them and stop their progression, you should control the consumption of vegetable products, especially tomatoes. As strange as it may sound, tomatoes and joints are closely related.
Patients with arthrosis believe that this vegetable increases pain. Therefore, when you completely abandon the product, your health improves. What is actually happening, how do experts comment on this topic, is it possible to eat tomatoes, how harmful or beneficial are tomatoes for joints, how to use them correctly - we will consider all these questions in this article.
- Is it possible to eat tomatoes with arthrosis?
- The effect of tomatoes on joints
- Recommendations for use for joint diseases
- Which tomatoes are better - fresh, canned or heat-treated?
Tomato – a guest from overseas
There is an opinion that a garden plant such as a tomato causes increased pain in people suffering from joint pathologies. This information is confirmed by numerous videos on the Internet, where the topic is raised: benefits and harms of tomatoes for joints.
The homeland of tomatoes is South America. Columbus introduced them to Europe, where they were used for a long time as ornamental shrubs. They were delivered to Russia by order of Tsarina Catherine. However, the Russian nobility did not recognize them for a long time because of the bitter taste characteristic of all nightshade crops.
Thanks to the persistence of Russian agronomists, we managed to learn how to grow them as seedlings and bring them to maturity. In the second half of the 20th century, greenhouse cultivation of this southern vegetable began, and it became a welcome guest on the table in every family. However, people suffering from diseases of the musculoskeletal system began to note the harm of tomatoes for sore joints.
Composition and benefits
Tomato is a low-calorie product that contains natural sugars - glucose and fructose. Tomatoes are rich in vitamins C and E; the vegetable’s composition is also dominated by pectin, folic acid, fiber and a large amount of B vitamins. The garden plant contains organic acids and the following micro- and macroelements:
- calcium;
- starch;
- iron;
- sulfur;
- silicon;
- magnesium;
- chlorine.
The vegetable helps improve the functioning of the digestive system.
The antioxidant is also found in tomatoes - provitamin A-carotenoid. Tomatoes lower blood pressure, improve the functioning of the digestive system and prevent cancer pathologies. The product is also useful for patients with a tendency to varicose veins and thrombosis. With proper and regular consumption of tomatoes, it will be possible to prevent intestinal obstruction and improve your overall condition. However, despite the benefits of the vegetable, it can also cause harm.
Thus, there is a deterioration in the condition of people with diseases of the musculoskeletal system.
Beneficial features
Tomatoes are known for their delicate taste, juiciness, and pleasant aroma. They have exceptionally great nutritional and medicinal value. They contain substances beneficial to human health such as pectin, folic acid, starch, and protein. They contain small amounts of oxalic, tartaric, and succinic acids, and citric and malic acids are present in soluble form.
Among the mineral substances they contain compounds of potassium, magnesium, sodium with a small amount of calcium. Tomatoes are rich in cobalt, iron, zinc, contain iodine, vitamins of groups BB, C, K, PP. It seems that here she is - a storehouse of vitamins, eat, get benefits and don’t get sick. The vegetable helps lower blood pressure, fight intestinal obstruction, and prevent cancer. But I want to understand whether tomatoes are harmful to joints.
Is it possible to eat tomatoes with arthrosis?
Tomato is the main vegetable in all cuisines of the world . It would be strange if it did not have a lot of useful properties. It contains:
- vitamins A, PP, C, E, K, H, group B;
- micro- and macroelements molybdenum, fluorine, selenium, iodine, iron, zinc, manganese, copper, potassium, chlorine,
- calcium, sulfur, sodium, phosphorus, magnesium;
- organic acids - citric, oxalic, malic.
In terms of ascorbic acid content, tomato successfully competes with citrus fruits. This vitamin is responsible for the synthesis of collagen, the main component of cartilage tissue . Vitamin PP is necessary for blocking interleukins and pain relief.
Vitamin E improves joint mobility. Selenium activates the absorption of sulfur, necessary for the synthesis of connective tissue. Manganese helps improve the nutrition of intervertebral cartilage and discs.
This entire preamble is a good presentation of tomato products. But how much does it help with arthrosis? After all, doctors are afraid that vegetables with a high acid content have a negative impact on the condition of the joints.
For example, oxalic acid accumulates in the body and leads to severe joint pain. This is due to the fact that the substance penetrates the intestines and disrupts the digestion process and removes oxalates. The body becomes acidified, and this increases inflammation processes and leads to damage to connective tissue. This effect is especially noticeable on the legs and arms.
Oxalic acid also irritates nerve tissue, which provokes pain.
The most dangerous thing is to combine vegetables containing oxalic acid and dairy products, fresh bread, meat and seafood.
In general, with arthrosis, it is recommended to use caution (or not eat at all) vegetables of the nightshade family - potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes. They contain purine compounds that accumulate uric acid salts in the joints.
Harm of tomatoes for arthritis and joint arthrosis
The characteristic distinguishing diseases of arthritis is inflammation of the joints, causing severe pain, which intensifies with increasing physical stress on the diseased organ. The inflammatory process affects cartilage tissue, destroying it. Osteoarthritis causes degeneration of the affected joint up to its destruction.
If you look at photos of diseased joints, many of which can be seen on the Internet, you can understand how the inflammatory process spreads. These diseases especially often affect the knees and hip joints, which experience great physical stress when walking. It is important to pay attention to the symptoms that appear in time, and to prevent the separation of the cartilage tissue and exposure of the bone.
When treating diseased joints, proper nutrition plays a major role. Doctors urge you to eat right, following a diet with foods that can calm the inflammatory process, positively influence the disease, and prevent the manifestation of gonarthrosis. The menu should be enriched with flaxseed oil, fish, vegetables, and fruits. But are all vegetables healthy? It's time to find out how tomatoes affect joints.
You may be interested in reading the article “Are tomatoes good or bad for the liver?” Read here...
What do tomatoes contain that is harmful to joints?
The acids that tomatoes are rich in include oxalic acid. Its use is beneficial for a person who does not have inflammatory diseases. But eating foods high in it is not advisable for people suffering from arthritis or arthrosis. Acid, accumulating in the body, can cause severe joint pain. It has the ability to turn into crystals of insoluble salts, which accumulate in the kidneys, the connecting parts of the skeletal bones.
Tomatoes are bright representatives of the nightshade family, which contain the alkaloid solanine. It is known from history that the ancient Romans prepared poisons from nightshades to poison their enemies. In the human body, solanine causes joint pain, promotes headaches, insomnia, nervousness, and cardiac arrhythmia. Solanine substances cause the intestines to take calcium from food.
In this way, the body accumulates calcium, which is deposited in the kidneys, skin, joints, cartilage, and soft tissues. Such unplanned accumulation of high calcium levels in the body leads to arthritis, bone spurs, and coronary artery disease.
Therefore, people who have been diagnosed with diseases of the musculoskeletal system should know that diseased joints and tomatoes are incompatible. It is no coincidence that there are recommendations to exclude tomatoes from the diet of such patients.
Can people with diseases of the musculoskeletal system eat tomatoes?
There are often cases when people suffering from joint pathologies note that when eating tomatoes they experience severe pain, which is significantly reduced when the vegetable is excluded from the diet. To understand why tomatoes have a bad effect on human health, you need to familiarize yourself with the composition of the vegetable.
What elements does a tomato consist of?
Tomato is a vegetable that contains a small amount of calories. It contains glucose and fructose, which are natural sugar substitutes. In addition, tomatoes contain many vitamins that belong to various groups, fiber and folic acid.
All these elements are great for improving digestion.
Thanks to the positive properties of tomatoes, the following processes occur in the body:
- Blood pressure normalizes;
- The digestive system is being improved;
- The risk of cancer, thrombosis and narrowing of veins is reduced;
- The general condition improves.
However, if joint pain is present, eating tomatoes may have a negative impact on the patient's well-being. This is explained by the fact that the vegetable contains oxalic acid, which causes severe discomfort in the joints. Therefore, it is better for people with diseases of the musculoskeletal system to refrain from eating vegetables.
However, not only tomatoes, but also potatoes have a harmful effect. It contains much more oxalic acid.
In what other cases is it advisable to give up tomatoes?
It is also not advisable for people with intolerance to the plant to include tomatoes in their daily diet. Allergies can manifest themselves in the form of vomiting and nausea, as well as acute pain in the abdominal area.
Reporting, bronchospasm and runny nose are the first signs of intolerance to the plant. If such symptoms occur, the victim should stop eating the plant immediately, and in the future, completely exclude it from the daily diet.
The right way to eat tomatoes
If a patient with problems with the spine or joints is not able to do without a vegetable in everyday life, then certain restrictions on its consumption should be observed. To avoid serious consequences, first of all you need to give up scrambled eggs with pieces of red tomato. Due to the fact that the vegetable contains a high level of acid, it should not be combined with seafood and meat.
If the recommendations are not followed, the pH level of stomach juice in the body increases, which threatens severe irritation of the gastric mucosa. It is because of this that you should reduce your tomato consumption to a minimum. It is also not advisable to eat the vegetable with bread that has just come out of the oven. This mixture of products leads to severe gas formation and bloating. Tomato juice is also not a healthy drink. However, it can be eaten as a separate dish. The drink contains substances that mix with the acid secreted in the digestive system to digest food.
Experts in the field of joint treatment recommend the gradual introduction of tomatoes into food. So you can start eating one product per day. After a meal, it is very important to observe the changes that occur in the body, and at the slightest complications, immediately stop consuming the product. If the body’s condition is normal, then you can occasionally allow yourself to eat your favorite vegetable.
Eating tomatoes for arthrosis and arthritis
As with all other joint-related diseases, when diagnosed with arthritis or arthrosis, it is very important to follow a special diet. Proper nutrition and physical activity should be introduced into the patient’s life according to the doctor’s recommendations. But you will have to give up alcoholic drinks and unhealthy foods.
So, what does proper nutrition mean?
First, you need to divide your meals; you shouldn’t eat everything at once in one sitting. It is best to eat frequently, several times a day. In addition, we must not forget about consuming fruits and vegetables to maintain vitamins in the body.
Compliance with all norms of proper nutrition and maintaining health with medications will allow the patient to significantly reduce weight, restore tissue that was damaged due to the disease, relieve inflammation, and also eliminate reporting.
It is known that today about 2% of the world's population is exposed to joint diseases. One of the surest ways to improve your life and get rid of discomfort for a long time is to follow a diet. Most often, it is one of the important components of therapeutic therapy.
However, before you start following a diet, you need to consult a specialist.
Proper nutrition for spinal diseases
During the treatment of almost any disease of the musculoskeletal system, the patient absolutely needs to adhere to a special diet. Because diet is important in the treatment process. Seemingly simple products can both cause harm and contribute to a speedy recovery. You should not neglect your diet.
So, for example, people who suffered from excess weight, which aggravated problems with the spine, after some time lose a significant amount of kilograms. Even after the end of treatment, people no longer want to see three-digit numbers on the scale, so they continue to adhere to a healthy lifestyle, playing sports and eating right.
You can speed up the healing process by using
- strict adherence to diets,
- regular exercise
- use of traditional medicine.
Together, these procedures will minimize pain and the frequency of symptoms.
Author: K.M.N., Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences M.A. Bobyr
So is it or is it not?
If, after all, the patient loves tomatoes so much that he cannot refuse them, then, as always, there are exceptions to any rule that reveal the peculiarities of consuming this vegetable:
- Tomatoes should not be eaten at the same time as scrambled eggs, meat, or seafood. This combination leads to an increase in the pH of gastric juice, which inflames the gastrointestinal tract
- You should avoid combining the consumption of tomatoes with fresh bread
- Tomato juice should not be washed down with food. It can only be used between meals and is considered a separate meal.
- You should eat no more than 1 piece. tomatoes per day, while carefully monitoring your health
If there is no significant impact on the course of the disease, then occasionally a patient with arthritis or arthrosis can allow himself to indulge in his favorite, albeit unhealthy, vegetable.
These are all just tips, although very useful. And to decide whether it is possible to eat tomatoes with arthrosis, everyone must decide for themselves, based on their well-being and the recommendations of the treating doctor.
If your health worsens, you should show willpower and strictly follow the doctor’s advice, because even the best specialist will not be able to cure the disease if the patient does not make an effort and help himself.
And to help give up tomatoes, the idea that many centuries ago our ancestors lived without knowing about the existence of tomatoes, and did not consider themselves hungry and deprived, can help.