The #1 Worst Food for Arthritis

Additional reporting by Leo Andreoli.

Picking out the #1 worst food to eat if you have arthritis isn't easy, and that's because an arthritis diagnosis comes with a lot of variables.

For one, what makes one person's joint pain worse may be totally different from what exacerbates another's, according to Heidi Turner, MS, RDN, CD, an integrative registered dietitian nutritionist with Food Logic, who specializes in autoimmune and inflammatory conditions.

Secondly, there are various types of arthritis, each of which may be made worse by something different in the diet. Four common forms of arthritis are osteoarthritis, which is a wearing down of the cartilage in the joints due to aging; rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks healthy cells and causes inflammation typically in the hands, wrists, and knees; gout, which usually affects one joint at a time, often starting with the big toe, and ankylosing spondylitis; or ankylosing spondylitis (AS), which reduces the flexibility of the spine.

RELATED: Telltale Signs You Have Arthritis

"Everybody's different; one person with osteoarthritis can eat a food (and feel fine) while another can have a really bad reaction to it," says Turner.

With that in mind, to find the #1 worst food for arthritis, the solution is to try an "elimination diet," that is, eliminating foods to identify those that make you feel better when you stop eating them. Read on to learn more about how to try an elimination diet to pinpoint the foods that worsen arthritis symptoms as well as the most likely culprits, and for more on how to eat healthy, make sure you avoid these 100 Unhealthiest Foods on the Planet.

Read the original article on Eat This, Not That!