Developing healthful diet patterns based on sound nutrition will strengthen the immune system and help eliminate chronic conditions such as lupus. While there is no specific lupus diet for all cases, different symptoms may suggest ways of improving your lupus symptoms through diet and nutrition.

By following a diet based on fresh, healthy, unadulterated nutrition and water, you can significantly decrease lupus symptoms. The lupus diet requires you to pay attention to what you eat, how often, how much, and the nutrition quality of what you eat.

The following nutrition guidelines should form the basis of your lupus diet and be slowly incorporated into your lifestyle:

_ Avoid junk food and fast food.

_ Increase the food choice variety and combinations - Eat a wide variety of foods in a variety of amounts and combinations to help ensure that you are ingesting a wider range of essential vitamins, minerals and fatty acids.

_ Remove as many artificial ingredients, additives, and chemicals from your nutritional plan as possible.

_ Avoid caffeine, sugar and as many unnecessary drugs as possible.

_ Eat small meals throughout the day as often as every three hours.

_ Keep nutrition-packed snacks handy such as: raw fruits and vegetables, dried fruit, whole grain bread sticks, whole grain crackers, unsalted seeds and nuts.

_ Maintain a balanced food composition of complex carbohydrates, healthy plant fats, essential fatty acids, lean animal protein and vegetable protein.

_ Incorporate more organic in your diet - Avoid vegetables, fruits and meats that are artificially produced with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertilizers and steroids. The chemicals applied to the plants often destroy essential soil microbes in an already deplete soil environment, resulting in plants that have a drastically reduced nutritional value.

_ Monitor your food intolerances and allergic reactions - If your body overreacts to certain foods, it could worsen conditions ranging from digestive troubles (gas, bloating, constipation, or diarrhea) to fatigue, headache or migraine, joint pain, mood disorders, muscle aches, and skin problems.

_ Drink eight to ten ounce glasses of purified and/or distilled water daily.

Discover Lupus Relief

In following the basic guidelines of the lupus diet listed above, you will notice a tendency to feel better when refined sugar, caffeine, alcohol, fried foods, red meat, and highly processed foods, are kept to minimum in the diet.

Eating a healthier diet can have long-term benefits for any individual suffering from lupus syndrome. Slowly start to add greater quantities of raw or lightly cooked fruits and vegetables throughout the day. Substitute high fat meats with fish, lean poultry and vegetable protein. Choose foods that are lower on the glycemic index, a scale that ranks foods from 0 to 100 depending on how fast they are digested and converted to glucose (sugar).

Many people benefit from cutting out all sugar for a month, which can severely reduce the craving for sweets, and allow your body to better manage its sugar intake when you add it back in. Eliminating all forms of caffeine, fried, processed and fatty foods can eliminate cravings for these items and allow you to see if they may be contributing to your lupus symptoms.

And don't forget, it is vital to drink plenty of purified and/or distilled water and take good vitamin and mineral supplements to be sure that you are getting proper nutrition.

Help Your Body Heal Itself

Also note that non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) like aspirin, ibuprofen, or acetaminophen that you may be using for pain management can tear down the lining of the gut and intestinal tract. If you have any predisposition to food intolerance or digestive disturbances, heavy use of these medications may make them worse, and these symptoms are very common in lupus. If you have never had digestive problems before, a steady regimen of NSAIDs may cause them to develop.

Infrequent or occasional use should not be a problem, but consistent or daily use will likely pose a health risk over time. NSAIDs can worsen the vitamin deficiencies and digestive problems so common in lupus, while often doing little to relieve pain in the long term. It may be a good idea to minimize your use of these medications.
 

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