I understand the correlations, but specifically singling out soda is not really fair. It could just as easily have been a candy bar or cake.

I never drank soda (really, like never the real stuff ever, occasionally diet), always ate lots of fish (that we caught ourselves),

I do agree that the idea of visceral fat causing inflammation is correct. Very interesting! I just wish there was a way to "tip the scales back" (so to speak) and get a due over!

Why these things still make me cry I do not know. But it is frustrating cause I have never been overweight and I did drink pop and eat candy sometimes, but not to the point where I would say more than the average American. I never knew I couldn't just live like everyone else until now, that I have RA and I really cannot live like everyone else. How unfair this whole thing is. I took good care of myself overall, better than average American I would say. Oh well. Water under the bridge.

I wasn't overweight until after RA. This said, one of the many things that my body reacts to by joint inflammation is red dye #40 and aspartamine. Both are found in the diet sodas that I used to live on. Unlike General food allergies, there are no allergy tests for artificial flavors or colors. Therefore my observations cannot be confirmed via testing - only through diet challenges.

I also have a student who gets very sick if he consumes certain artificial food ingredients.

Since there are no nutritional benefits to sodas and most of their ingredients are not found in our natural diet, one must wonder if we aren't like the Romans and slowly poisoning ourselves by consuming low doses of toxic substances? For them it was lead which they used as a sweetener and in their glassware.. It didn't kill them outright so was considered a safe food additive. I wonder how future generations will think of our perchance for consuming all things artificial.

Beautifully said, Sally!

Weird- the article loaded, then disappeared behind a members-only wall. What I could see said fish and booze good, soda bad. I would have liked to actually read the article, especially as the ads on the side linked to another article saying that the Mediterranean Diet (fish and wine, anyone?) does NOT have a beneficial effect on RA. My guess? It's speculation, things folks are studying, and nothing engraved in stone, applicable to every RA patient. By most accounts fish is good for us and soda is bad. Alcohol goes back and forth, but a moderate amount seems to be in the neutral-to-good column. Unless you're on methotrexate . . ..

the point of the article was visceral fat and cell inflammation as I recall.

other than that after the last go around I have absolutely nothing more to say, if you can buy that one.

depot

Interesting research but just doesn't tell the whole story, as I -- like many of you -- have always maintained a healthy weight, a vigorous exercise program, and a balanced diet. It's a myth that these choices will guarantee you a long and healthy life. The RA diagnosis stole that from us.
I am especially irritated by those self-righteous, lucky people who are still able to be active into their middle and old age. They proudly attribute it to their lifestyle choices and judge those of us who weren't so lucky.

Magie - then you have my healthy grandpa who maintained a 2 acre veg garden until his late 80s. Was never sick.

And he regularly had several shots of whiskey every night, and smoked a pipe like a smokestack. When doctors told him that he had colon cancer at age 95 and that he should quit his bad habits - he shrugged and said he'd been living on borrowed time since he turned 76. So he wasn't gonna change now.

So good habits don't necessarily give you the good luck of having health