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Rheumatoid Arthritis

The Many Layers to Wellness

by

Perry A. Chapdelaine, Sr.

The Arthritis Trust of America

®

7376 Walker Road, Fairview, Tn 37062

It took me six weeks to halt the progress of "galloping"

rheumatoid arthritis, two more years to pay attention to

candidiasis, nutrition and food allergies, and the next 13 years

to understand what's really going on, and what the factors are

that create rheumatoid arthritis and the other 79 related

rheumatoid diseases.

I'm not going to lie to you, and say that I know all the

factors, but I'll bet most anything that I know more than most

rheumatologists. Not being a health professional those are

mighty egoistic words!

I'm going to share my knowledge with you. You can act

on it or not, as you wish. Health, after all, is always up to you,

not your doctor.

1. Layer One Toward Wellness: Stress

Stress is the greatest contributor toward a sick body.

Whenever stress is unavoidable, or even if you've conditioned

yourself to believe that a stress activity is enjoyable, some

folks will get well simply by removing themselves from an

environment of stress. Stress has many faces, and it is never

solved by blaming others, although it's possible that remov-

ing yourself from others may be necessary. There are so many

faces to stress that it deserves a newsletter by itself.

Some folks can get well from rheumatoid arthritis

simply by removing themselves from stressful situations.

2. Layer Two Toward Wellness: Nutrition

As I've repeatedly written -- as has Joel Wallach, D.V.M.,

N.D. (Dead Doctors Don't Lie; Rare Earths: Forbidden

Cures, etc.) -- a successful farmer knows more about nutri-

tion than the vast majority of health professionals graduating

from the standard medical school. A successful farmer knows

with a certainty -- a certainty upon which his family's welfare

relies -- that unless he feeds his cattle, chickens, hogs, sheep,

and so forth the very best nutrients, their market value will be

low, and his income accordingly will suffer. Unfortunately

few American farmers have learned to apply this same

philosophy to their plant kingdom crops, as they seem to be

stuck in the limited nitrogen/phosphorus cycle, and the use of

hybrids that produce large, healthy appearing vegetation

without a whole lot of nourishing characteristics.

Most religions teach that man is both spirit and animal.

And while it is most important to nourish the spirit, this can

be increasingly difficult without pesistently buttressing our

animal natures with the proper nutrition and nutritional

supplements. If not, the spirit may leave the body prema-

turely.

Everywhere on earth are healthful foods growing wild:

insects, worms, nuts, fruits, various vegetation. There's prob-

ably more healthful edible food growing wild on this planet

even today than there is unedible, poisonous food, but neither

of us are about to break our childhood conditioning to seek after

it. So, what is left?

Well, the closer we can come to the diet of our foraging

ancestors, the more healthy we will become. In other words,

we need organically grown food free of pesticides, herbicides,

and chock full of enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and essential

fatty acids.

As it has become increasingly difficult to obtain what our

animal natures require, we must do the best we can. After having

chosen the very best store products available to us, we must

choose wisely in supplementing with various vitamins, min-

erals, and essential fatty acids -- because our foods no longer

contain the proper balance or lack sufficient quantity of these

life substances.

Those are just the general principles. A scientific dis-

course on the proper food baffles the best of physicians, so

don't expect this short article, or even this writer, to provide

you with foolproof, complete advice suitable just for you. Each

person is genetically different, and each has different require-

ments, and those are the ingredients that you must learn about

with the assistance of a knowledgeable health professional.

There are many who achieve wellness from rheumatoid

arthritis, and the other 79 collagen tissue diseases which we

call rheumatoid diseases, simply by improving their nutri-

tional intake. I would estimate that about 30% can get well

by this means alone. Incidentally, that 30% figure which I've

guessed comes from two other sources: (a) professional

rheumatologists will have about 30-33% "improvement"

rate, no matter what they've done to their patients, right or

wrong; (b) about 30-33% is the "improvement" rate for

traditional rheumatology practices reported in many scien-

tific studies, called the "placebo effect."

Remove stress, and improve nutrition, and you may very

well achieve wellness from rheumatoid disease!

3. Layer Three Toward Wellness: Candidasis and

Food Allergies.

Candida albicans, a yeast/fungus, is an organism of

opportunity, just as many other microorganisms are. These

organisms of opportunity set up shop in our bodies, particu-

larly the intestinal tract, whenever conditions are right. Right

conditions are provided by the use of antibiotics, hormones

(birth control pills) and other chemicals, exposure to stress,

and poor nutrition. A particularly virulent form of candidiasis

-- the name given to the Candida albicans yeast/fungus

infection -- is a fungal form that plants itself in the intestinal

mucosal membrane, there to grow inward rootlets that pen-

etrate all the way into the blood stream. (See The Yeast

Connection, William Crook; The Yeast Syndrome, Morton

Walker, D.P.M., John Trowbridge, M.D.; others)

Candidiasis, as will most yeasts, produces either acetal-

dehyde or alcohol, or both. Acetaldehyde is the metabolite of

alcohol, the part of drinking liquors that gives you a hang-

over the next morning. This persisent production of acetalde-

hyde in your intestinal tract passes through every organ and

bodily system day by day, night by night, placing extreme

chemical stress on your cells, organs, and systems. The

effects are extreme. In time virtually every degenerative

disease condition can be mimicked, including those of rheu-

matoid arthritis as well as the other 79 so-called "auto-

immune" diseases.

Simultaneously, as acetaldehyde is slowly, drastically,

affecting your life, the rootlets planted in your mucosa are

®