Durham, N.C. - Here's some "colorful" news about how diet may cut your risk of arthritis. A recent study by British researchers showed for the first time that subjects who ate a diet high in carotenoids “ the chemicals that give certain fruits and vegetables their orange and yellow colorings “ dramatically reduced their risk of inflammatory arthritis. Dr. Rex McCallum, a rheumatologist at Duke University Medical Center, says the study's findings are significant. "It looks like eating these orange and yellow fruits makes a difference. The incidence for people who ate the least of that kind of fruits in their diets, versus those who ate the most, doubled. That's a fascinating finding." McCallum says earlier research has shown that a diet rich in carotenoids and other antioxidants can also help stave off osteoarthritis, or degenerative joint disease. "Otherwise, it comes down to common sense. To have a balanced diet, to have a balanced lifestyle with some exercise, to make sure you don't gain excessive weight, those are the kinds of things that I recommend to my patients, from the standpoint of decreasing the ill effects of arthritis." I'm Cabell Smith for MedMinute.