| Many years ago, out in rural central Texas where I | | | | the research establishment has been debunking food |
| lived at the time, my neighbor Gladys suffered | | | | as a treatment for arthritis for over eighty years. |
| severe rheumatoid arthritis. After failing to get relief | | | | In the early 1900s, many doctors published reports |
| from a series of medications, Gladys discovered her | | | | on the use of food to treat rheumatic diseases. Food |
| personal super-food: catfish. | | | | cures, of course, competed with sales of the new |
| The days Gladys ate catfish, specifically, the days | | | | wonder drug, aspirin. In 1932, a Dr. Weatherbee |
| she ate catfish caught in the creek that ran behind | | | | analyzed 350 cases of arthritis and concluded that |
| both of our houses, her arthritis seemed to go away. | | | | "Dietary treatments of all types had been tried in |
| Soon she dressed in jeans, long sleeves, and her | | | | many cases [but]...little definite improvement dietary |
| sunbonnet and carrying a fishing pole became an | | | | management alone was reported." As steroid drugs |
| everyday sight around her farm, and ours. The | | | | began to appear on the market, criticism of food |
| formerly abundant catfish became much harder to | | | | cures for arthritis intensified. |
| catch, but Gladys enjoyed mobility and freedom from | | | | A comprehensive review of the medical research of |
| pain she had not known in years. | | | | its time-1940-concluded, "The incidence of food |
| Although I've never heard of anyone else who cured | | | | allergy among rheumatic patients is not significant." |
| arthritis with fried catfish, my neighbor's general | | | | Medical schools had actually taught doctors how to |
| approach to dealing with her disease was scarcely | | | | apply food cures in arthritis, but by 1954, the last |
| unique. People who have rheumatoid arthritis and their | | | | medical school textbook to discuss the use of diet in |
| doctors in their more honest moments will often tell | | | | the management of rheumatoid arthritis stated, "We |
| you that some foods aggravate arthritis and other | | | | cannot approve the emphasis laid on the factor of |
| foods make it better. | | | | food allergy in cases of atrophic arthritis; it is neither |
| The problem in treating rheumatoid arthritis with | | | | common nor do we consider it important....Cases of |
| whole foods has been that one person's "super-food" | | | | atrophic arthritis with undoubted and repeated |
| has no effect at all for someone else, or may even | | | | articular exacerbations from foods are few and far |
| make arthritis worse. Since foods can't be patented, | | | | between." |
| there have been no millions in research money to | | | | More than fifty years later, however, rheumatoid |
| research the patterns of foods that may help | | | | arthritis sufferers are still using the food cures that |
| everyone who has rheumatoid arthritis. Moreover, | | | | medical science once rejected. |