Can vegetables prevent arthritis?

8:38am Friday 9th May 2008

Q We have a lot of arthritis in our family. Is it true that eating a lot of fruit and vegetables can prevent it?

A About four years ago a study (I think it was in East Anglia) reported on the eating habits of men and women, and found that those consuming the least fruit and vegetables every day were three times more likely to develop one of the inflammatory' (rheumatoid-type) forms of arthritis than those eating the most. So if the arthritis in your family arthritis is of the rheumatoid type, by all means eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. They don't seem to protect against osteoarthritis. However, you should be eating plenty of them anyway for a host of other health reasons.

Q My 11-year old daughter has developed arthritis in her knees and ankles, and has been put on methotrexate. It is helping her a lot, but she has blood tests every week while on it. Must she really have so many tests? She hates the needles.

A I'm afraid she must. Methotrexate can lower her white blood cell count, making her very susceptible to infections. The weekly test will catch any fall in the count early enough to reverse it in time to keep her healthy. Ask the doctor for some anaesthetic cream to rub on the needle site before the sample is taken. As an aside you might explain to her that she could have had diabetes. Then she would have had to inject herself several times a day.

Q I've lost a stone-and-a-half recently, and my doctor says I'm anaemic. I'm being sent for a bowel endoscopy. I'd like to know why. I've always had normal bowel movements, and have never passed blood.

A Your doctor is making sure you don't have a bleeding area inside your bowel. About one in six people, men and women, found to have your type of anaemia on routine blood tests, turn out to have bowel cancer, even though they have not had any symptoms (like diarrhoea or bleeding) or signs (like lumps in the abdomen). Your doctor is quite rightly wishing to rule that out in your case. Anaemia isn't an illness in itself - it is a sign that there is an underlying problem that has to be found and cured. You may have been leaking tiny amounts of blood every day in your motions - enough to make you anaemic, but not enough for you to notice.

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