Arthritis in people over the age of fifty is hardly anything new. As we grow older, we lose a lot of the collagen and fluids in our bodies start to wear down and deteriorate, resulting in softer, squishier joints.
As our joints are softer and squishier, they no longer take the same pressure and movement as we used to be able to handle in our youth.
A bit like a piece of rubber that has lost its bounce, we find the cushioning on our joints cracks and crumbles at the slightest provocation.
This damage results in the bone underneath overgrowing to compensate. And this overgrowth will further wear down the cushioning on our joints, this time from the inside, until all that is left is bone rubbing on bone.
There are two distinct forms of arthritis, both of which you need to worry about once you are over the age of fifty:
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease which makes your joints swell up. You could suffer this your whole life, but it can also develop suddenly in your 50s, due to how the immune system weakens as you grow older, and also how autoimmune conditions manifest with age. There is no cure for it, but there are medications which help, and ways of slowing down its development.
Osteoarthritis is a condition where the cushioning between the joints loses mineral and ligament density, making it vulnerable to every day wear and tear. As we grow older, lifelong damage that has built up may catch up with us, causing osteoarthritis.
Both conditions culminate in the same symptoms eventually, but when and how they start is different. It could be said, therefore, that rheumatoid arthritis starts with the inflammation and ends with arthritis, whereas osteoarthritis starts with joint damage and ends with arthritis.
For this reason, there is no one best cure or treatment for arthritis. Rather, we must make use of a variety of approaches to tackle the different problems that come with it.
We need to address the pain of the condition, the inflammation associated with it, the weakened joint cushioning which started the problem, and last but not least the bone overgrowth that is making it worse.
Depending on your needs, you may end up taking prescription medications, over the counter medications, herbal remedies, or supplements for any one, or all of, those problems.
Here, we are simply discussing the positive impact a good vitamin supplement can have on your quality of life if you are a person over fifty with arthritis.
First of all, we need to discuss the effects of vitamins A, C, and E. This combination is known to be unique in its powerful effects on the immune system, with each vitamin targeting different aspects of immunity. This combination has been found to benefit patients with osteoarthritis.
Vitamin A has the most marginal benefit to people with osteoarthritis. It is thought that the antioxidant benefits of these three vitamins will help your cells recover from the effects of ageing, giving them a better chance of growing healthy joint and bone tissue to replace the damaged tissue.
Furthermore, vitamin C stimulates the production of both collagen and proteoglycan, which make up most of the cartilage in our joints, stopping it from breaking down. Vitamin E is also thought to promote cartilage growth, and is anti-inflammatory, relieving pain.
However, this vitamin range does not seem to provide additional benefits to people with rheumatoid arthritis, beyond the natural benefits of consuming antioxidants.
Vitamin B complexes also have a marginal effect on osteoarthritis, but little to no effect on rheumatoid arthritis directly. However, indirectly, B vitamin complex supplements will strengthen and calibrate your immune system.
This has been shown to alleviate the severity of many autoimmune conditions, and it is possible that in the long term it delays or prevents the development of rheumatoid arthritis, even if it cannot reverse the damage already done.
On a more direct level, vitamins B9 and B12 are important to the healthy formation of bone. This means that a vitamin B complex supplement, or eating foods that are rich in vitamin B, could help prevent the growth of excess bone tissue which causes so much additional pain to arthritis sufferers.
