Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis: Cutting-Edge Strategies for the Relief of Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis

by Miriam E. Nelson Ph.D, Kristin Baker, Lawrence Lindner M.A., Ronenn Roubenoff

Overview

The New York Times bestselling author of Strong Women Eat Well and fellow Tufts University scientists present a simple plan that has been proven to reduce the pain and immobility caused by arthritis…

 

Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis shows the direct connection between a strength-training program you can do at home and the reduction—and even prevention—of arthritis symptoms. No other research study using an exercise program has ever showed the results that the Tufts study achieved: a 43% reduction in pain, a 44% improvement in physical function, and a 71% improvement in strength. This book offers all the tools you need—and more:

 

·         An exercise program designed specifically to protect the joints and relieve stiffness and soreness

·         A scientifically based eating plan to reduce inflammation and pain

·         A hands-on guide to the latest medications

·         The real story on complementary therapies—which ones work? Which ones don’t?

·        ...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399528569
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/04/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.05(w) x 9.01(h) x 0.83(d)
Age Range:	18 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lawrence Lindner, M.A., pens the monthly "Eating Right" column.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	xi
	Preface	xv
Section I	New Strategies for Dealing with Arthritis	1
Chapter 1	You Can Reduce the Pain	3
Chapter 2	Just What Is Arthritis?	13
Chapter 3	The Science Behind the Program	31
Section II	The Beat Arthritis Program	51
Chapter 4	Strong Nutrition for Strong Joints	53
Chapter 5	The Beat Arthritis Exercise Program	83
Chapter 6	Triggering Change	171
Section III	Supportive Therapies	189
Chapter 7	Choosing the Right Medication(s)	191
Chapter 8	The Ins and Outs of Joint Replacement Surgery	216
Chapter 9	Complementary Approaches	227
	The Beat Arthritis Workbook	248
	Glossary	269
	Resources	273
	References	281
	Index	289

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Can you beat arthritis? Yes. With fundamentally sound advice and a program offered by real experts in the field…Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis should be in the hands of people struggling with arthritis—and also in the hands of their doctors.”—Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D., Medical Correspondent, ABC News
 
“As an athlete who has had injuries, I am concerned about my muscles and joints. This is a program that is easy to follow. Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis provides the tools and motivation to keep my joints healthy as I grow older.”—Pam Shriver, Tennis Champion
 
“This clearly written self-care manual by Nelson…and her colleagues… should be a boon to arthritis sufferers…Extremely helpful.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Clear, practical, and scientifically-based advice to allow people to take control of their arthritis.”—John H. Klippel, M.D., Medical Director, Arthritis Foundation

 

Interviews

Exclusive Author Essay
Translating research results into recommendations for better living can be tricky business. After all, clinical research is generally carried out in a lab under "artificial" circumstances and with a lot of medical supervision, so you can't say with certainty that people trying to do the same things on their own would get the same beneficial results. But that's exactly why I'm so excited about Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis. The research that forms the basis of this book was conducted by people on their own -- in their living rooms, bedrooms, and family rooms -- with only sporadic visits from an exercise physiologist to make sure they were doing the prescribed exercises correctly. That was the whole point of our study -- to make sure people could follow the program on their own. So when we say that women and men with arthritis can reduce their pain by 43 percent and improve their strength by 71 percent, we're not risking overstatement. That's exactly what happened to people with arthritis who followed the exercise prescription laid out by my colleagues and me at Tufts University.

I knew when we published the results in an academic journal read by scientists that we also wanted to make them available to the public at large. The findings were too good to be left to collect dust on the shelf of a university library. Apparently, a lot of folks agree with me. As soon as I started to let on that we were working on a book about how to reduce arthritis pain and live a fuller life, people were telling me they couldn't wait to read it. It wasn't just people who already had arthritis, although there are many of them -- 43 million in the U.S. alone. It was also people who wanted to prevent arthritis because they had seen the pain and disability it caused for a parent or sibling.

That's one of the things I'm so proud of with Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis. It can truly help you prevent the disease along with making life better once you already have it.

And it's not just exercise that nets the results. Diet plays a critical role, too, with certain eating patterns contributing to the development of arthritis and certain ones warding it off, so we've included specific instructions for what foods to eat -- and which to avoid. There's clear advice, too, on which complementary therapies have merit and which are bogus. I felt that was particularly important, because sometimes people in arthritis pain waste time and money chasing after false promises when there are legitimate treatments worth trying.

But Strong Men and Women Beat Arthritis does more than tell you which exercises to do, what foods to eat, and what substances to take. If you follow the guidelines in this book, it will literally change the chemistry of your body to protect you from the ravages of a devastating and all too common disease. Less pain, more freedom of movement, even less depression -- I'm thrilled to be able to share the keys with you in this work. (Miriam E. Nelson, Ph.D.)

Editorial Reviews

Can you beat arthritis? Yes. With fundamentally sound advice and a program offered by real experts in the field…Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis should be in the hands of people struggling with arthritis—and also in the hands of their doctors.”—Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D., Medical Correspondent, ABC News

 

“As an athlete who has had injuries, I am concerned about my muscles and joints. This is a program that is easy to follow. Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis provides the tools and motivation to keep my joints healthy as I grow older.”—Pam Shriver, Tennis Champion

 

“This clearly written self-care manual by Nelson…and her colleagues… should be a boon to arthritis sufferers…Extremely helpful.”—Publishers Weekly

 

“Clear, practical, and scientifically-based advice to allow people to take control of their arthritis.”—John H. Klippel, M.D., Medical Director, Arthritis Foundation

 

From the Publisher

The Barnes & Noble Review
Pain relief, like weight loss, is never short on new "breakthrough programs" promising results based on the latest scientific research, especially when it comes to arthritis. Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis covers much of the same ground that other books on the subject have in terms of diet, medications, and nutritional supplements, but what sets it apart is its focus on strength training as a means of relieving pain.

Bestselling author Miriam Nelson, Ph.D., along with her coauthors and colleagues at Tufts University, studied 46 arthritis sufferers over a period of four months. Half of the patients in the study completed a home-based strength-training program supervised by one of the researchers. The other half received only emotional support by the same researcher.

According to the Tufts team, patients who underwent the strength-training program experienced a 43 percent reduction in arthritis pain compared to only 12 percent in those that did not. They also reported a host of related benefits, including significant increases in mobility. The authors argue that strength training works primarily by building up the muscles supporting the affected joints, thereby taking pressure off these joints. The book provides a detailed summary of specific exercises that are recommended for specific types of arthritis pain, along with easy-to-follow illustrations demonstrating how each exercise should be performed. One example is a simple toe stand for ankle pain. Another is a back extension for lower-back pain. All can be done alone and in the privacy of your own home.

Additional points of interest include the chapters on joint replacement surgery and choosing the right medications, but it's the material on strength training that will make Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis a strong addition to the bookshelf of anyone suffering from this debilitating disease. (P. L. Jennings)

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