This Condition CAUSES Diabetes, Strokes, and More!
If you’re like most Americans, you want to do everything you can to avoid conditions like high blood pressure, depression, peptic ulcers, or strokes.
Doctors might tell you to modify your diet (always a good idea), or simply to take drugs like ACE inhibitors (not a good idea).
But believe it or not, the four conditions I just mentioned have one thing in common.
It’s a condition that afflicts 30 million Americans. But it’s 100% preventable.
And never getting this one disease could be a big key to avoiding the rest.
Diseases are like deadly domino effects. Having one problem makes you more likely to have another. Having two makes you more likely to have a third. And on and on.
The scientific term for this is comorbidity, which simply means having two or more diseases at the same time.
Some connections are obvious… like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Others are less so.
Case in point: A recent study has found that people who have osteoarthritis are much more likely to suffer from numerous other conditions that seem completely unrelated.
When researchers evaluated 42 studies conducted in 16 different countries, they found that people with osteoarthritis are 2.5 times more likely to have not one, not two, but THREE or more comorbidities.
The conditions most connected to osteoarthritis included stroke, peptic ulcer, hypertension, and depression.
Naturally, having these other chronic conditions only made the pain and functional disability worse for those individuals with osteoarthritis.
So what’s the takeaway?
First, take active steps to avoid osteoarthritis in the first place.
And if you’ve already been diagnosed, take active steps to reduce the disability associated with the disease. Two key ways to do that are by consuming anti-inflammatory foods like oily fish, dark green vegetables, and extra virgin olive oil – and exercise.
Just 10 minute per day of light exercise has been shown to prevent the disability associated with knee osteoarthritis.
