The acid test for arthritis

[Guest guest]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml;jsessionid=SCPIWUXIU01YPQFIQMFCFF4A\

VCBQYIV0?xml=/health/2007/08/06/harthritis106.xml

 

 

 

Last month, Sarah Gall, a church organist from Rochdale, Lancashire wrote to The

Daily Telegraph describing how she believed she had been cured of arthritis in

her spine by following a diet that included apple cider vinegar and honey.

 

 

 

The Letters page was inundated with dozens of emails, letters and phone calls

from readers requesting more information about Gall's regime - which had been

first devised by a nurse called Margaret Hills in 1961.

 

In fact, Hills's use of cider vinegar follows in a long tradition: people have

been using natural cider vinegar as a medicine for centuries.

 

As far back as 3,000 BC, Egyptians were using it for health benefits including

weight loss and Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, was said to have

used cider vinegar for its healing qualities. While doctors remain sceptical,

many sufferers have embraced it, including the explorer and adventurer Sir

Ranulph Fiennes.

 

And with increasing pressure on the Health Service to fund drugs - last week it

was revealed that thousands of severe rheumatoid arthritis sufferers (a type of

arthritis in which the immune system starts attacking the joints) may be denied

the drug Orencia after the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence

said it should not be available on the NHS due to its annual cost of £10,000 per

patient a year - people are increasingly looking to alternative therapies to

control their condition.

 

For 54-year-old Gall, osteoarthritis (where joints are damaged through age, wear

and tear or injury) meant she was bedridden, in constant pain, unable to sleep

and understandably depressed by her condition. A bad reaction to prescribed

anti-inflammatory tablets meant that she could not take any drugs to ease it.

 

" I was emotionally and physically drained, I was crying all the time and the

pain was totally crippling - it was like someone was drilling through the base

of my spine, " she said.

 

Desperate to help, Gall's daughter found a book - Treating Arthritis the

Drug-Free Way by Margaret Hills - on eBay.

 

Hills had developed rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 21, during her first year

of nursing training in 1947. She recovered after resting for eight months but

then, as she grew older, she developed osteoarthritis before once again

succumbing to rheumatoid arthritis.

 

Feeling that conventional medicine had done little to help, she turned to

natural remedies in the early 1960s. After her children grew up, she opened the

Margaret Hills Clinic in Warwickshire in 1982, where her daughter, Christine

Horner, now continues her work.

 

Arthritis, which affects nine million people in Britain, is an inflammation of

the joints and its causes are not clear.

 

Hills believed arthritis is caused by the body building up acid, which

crystallises and lodges between the joints. The acid crystals become surrounded

by fluids, causing swelling, soreness and stiffness. So Hills concluded that the

condition would be alleviated by cutting down on acid entering the body.

 

" By controlling the amount of acid going in through diet we aim to increase the

alkaline resources in the body that cause the crystals to break down, " says

Horner.

 

" The overall effect of apple cider vinegar and honey is alkalising and helps to

create the right environment in the stomach to start off the digestive process. "

 

Gall decided to follow the regime strictly - it meant avoiding alcohol, cutting

out foods with refined sugar and any citric fruit, as well as taking cider

vinegar, mixed with honey, hot water and molasses, after every meal. This was

combined with vitamin supplements - including A, B, magnesium and calcium - and

a hot bath in Epsom salts.

 

After a week, Gall began to feel much better and, after a couple of months, she

is " pain-free and totally mobile " and can continue to play the church organ. She

takes daily exercise but says that the arthritis creeps back as soon as she

stops the regime.

 

Sir Ranulph Fiennes first tried cider vinegar and honey after developing bad

arthritis in his hands and his hip 23 years ago.

 

He did so after seeing the transformation in his mother, Lady Audrey Fiennes,

who suffered from arthritis in the lower back. She had turned to the natural

remedy when she was 86 and was bed-ridden due to her condition; the family had

even contemplated moving her into a care home.

 

" After six months my mother's arthritis started getting better, " says Fiennes.

 

" She got over the problem completely and was able to stay in her house. She died

aged 92 but she got an extra six years. "

 

So, when he found himself developing arthritis, he followed her example. After

trying several kinds of cider vinegar, he found that by taking Honeygar - a

brand sold in health food shops - his arthritis eased.

 

Fiennes was the first man to completely cross the Antarctic by foot; he has run

seven marathons in seven days on seven continents and was the first to visit

both the North and South Poles.

 

He feels that the natural remedy has helped him to carry on his adventurous

lifestyle.

 

" Without it I wouldn't be able to have done all the things I have done, as the

running and the damp would induce arthritis, " he says.

 

" It has completely kept my arthritis at bay. "

 

Despite these individual success stories, doctors doubt the effectiveness of

such a diet.

 

" Unlike some alternative medicine, cider vinegar is harmless, " says Dr Michael

Ehrenstein, consultant rheumatologist at University College Hospital.

 

" However, there have been no scientific trials which prove that cider vinegar

works at all. "

 

And as the causes of arthritis are not clear, Dr Ehrenstein says he is " very

sceptical " that a combination of diet, cider vinegar and Epsom salt baths would

help.

 

" The only food that has been linked to rheumatoid arthritis is red meat - and

you have to eat a lot of red meat - but we do not as yet understand why red meat

causes arthritis, " he added.

 

A spokeswoman for Arthritis Care said cider vinegar is an old traditional

treatment but was unaware of any independent evidence.

 

" Before taking any purported remedy, it is important to discuss with your GP any

side-effects or possibly harmful interaction with prescription medicine, " she

said.

 

However, Christine Horner believes that thousands of arthritis sufferers have

been helped through a combination of the acid-free diet:

 

" Don't expect results overnight - some people take months to respond, others

take years - but we firmly believe that this combination is the key to getting

rid of arthritic disease, " she says.