At the forum here there have been multiple posts in the past how Huel has had a positive effect on people with chronic inflammatory bowel diseases like morbus crohn.
What about rheumatoid arthritis? Does anyone here have this condition, and can report about the effect of Huel on it?
And if there are positive effects, which products would you recommend? Only the powders and RTD or also other ones?
Thank you in advance!
RA is a chronic autoimmune disease and the treatment of it is to try control the disease - improving the quality of life by reducing pain. The only part diet plays in this, is by weight control through healthy eating that can aid the ability to participate in daily exercise during periods where the RA is not active. So in that respect you could say Huel could help maintain a healthier diet, but it wouldnât have any direct impact on RA other than that.
Reducing stress and continuing his immunsuppressive medication would be the ideal solution, but his job does not make it possible to reduce stress, and he does not want to. Stress was also a cause for repeated respiratory tract infections, which is why his physician wanted to pause the immunsuppressive medication.
Even if a lifestyle change wonât be the best solution, changing parts of his nutrition is the only thing that seems so be feasible. Otherwise he would have to change his job, and he does not want to do that.
And his nutrition is crap, due to stress. So I thought I could get something better for him, thatâs why I asked what products you would recommend in this case.
Is anyone here with rheumatoid arthritis or another autoimmune disease? If yes it would be great if you could share your experiences, thanks in advance.
While not exactly the same I have psoriasis, another autoimmune disorder. When I have gone fully plant based it has definitely calmed down and gone into retreat. I credit this to what I was not eating as much as to what I was eating ie. avoiding rubbish inflammatory foods and only eating whole nutrient rich lower calorie foods.
I donât think huel would help specifically but could be used as part of a wider diet âclean upâ. Having a huel shake for lunch then having a can of coke and a kitkat at the next break wouldnât really help though. 
Thanks for your reply. Just one question: What do you mean with ârubbish inflammatory foodsâ? Processed ones? Do synthethic vitamins and minerals also âcountâ as ânutrient-richâ?
I know that there have been similar discussions before, but I still struggle with terms like âwholeâ or âhealthyâ with regard to nutrition.
Foods can be healthy without being whole, and they can be whole without being healthy.
What exactly is the difference? And what is meant by âhealthyâ? This term is commonly used, but it seems to me that there is no clear definition.
Yes thereâs probably no legal definition, thoâ advertisers have to take care.
Iâll leave the whole food/not whole food argument to the other thread, I personally just use the term to describe eating foods that havenât had the nutrition processed out of them ie. you eat the whole food. Think eating a baked potato rather than chips.
Worrying about vitamins is overthinking it to be honest, youâll burn yourself out! 
Your biggest enemies in terms of diet with regards to inflammation are too much omega 6 fat (omega 3:6 ratio) and refined carbohydrate (higher insulin), and eating too much; adipose tissue is hugely pro-inflammatory.
Some find it helpful to cut out entirely dairy and/or gluten.
Most important is the bigger picture, donât sweat the details too much, especially as you say heâs not really in a position to make real change. If you can get him to eat oats and berries for breakfast instead of cereal, great! If you can get him to have a huel shake instead of stopping at Greggâs on the way to work, great!
I advocate everyone stops drinking soft drinks who cares for their health no matter what the situation.
Thanks.
One thing I was not aware of are omega 6 fatty acids, although you didnât mention what exactly makes them bad.
Regarding low-fat milk there seem to be different opinions, because in theory it is low in carbs and high in protein. Is it because of contamination with antibiotics and similar stuff?
I agree that gluten is bad, this is exactly what I believe in - just why do you recommend oats then? These are high-carb foods containing gluten.
Oats donât contain gluten
Only through cross contamination as far as Iâm aware.
Exactly. And a bit
It does not really matter why it contains gluten. What is relevant is that it does contain it. I am highly sceptical of all types of grain, high carb, mostly high in gluten, often highly addictive, especially if processed.
But this is just my opinion, I am aware that many people think about that differently. Maybe there is no âone-fits-allâ solution for everybody.
Please explain products made with gluten-free oats then. Huel had/have a GF range of v3.1 for years.
Oats donât contain glutenâŚif they are cross contaminated it is only trace amounts not high gluten. Again you never read what is written.
When interested in inflammation it is beneficial to consume a good ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 rather than omega 6 being bad in itself. When processed by the body omega 3 competes with omega 6; omega 6 produces pro-inflammatory end products and omega 3 produces anti-inflammatory end products. A good ratio would be around 4:1, whereas modern diets contain more like 20:1 or more. We need both, one researcher thought to consume mostly omega 3 as it must be good if theyâre anti-inflammatory but became very ill.
The role of dairy in inflammation seems to concern the protein element, thereâs no scientific evidence to explain why but some people (especially on psoriasis forums) remove dairy and it works really well. Itâs worth a try.
As others have said, oats donât contain gluten but are often contaminated in processing. Some people find removing grains entirely helps but itâs purely trial and error.
None of these of course treat the disease process itself, itâs the resulting inflammation that we can try to reduce.