Earlier tonight, I spoke on the phone with my mother in NC who told me that she's been eating raisins as a way of combating arthritis.  Not just any raisins, mind you - golden raisins... and soaked in G*I*N!!!  There was a time when I would have told you you were crazy if you had suggested such a thing, doubly so if you'd suggested that *my mother* would be delicately nibbling *nine* (count 'em!) - *nine* - golden gin-soaked raisins to fight against arthritis. 

But  at the age of 81, her knees don't work as smoothly as they once did.  And though generally she gets instructions from her doctor to keep doing what she's doing and come back in six months, there are the occasional aches and pains.  Besides, if it works, who cares whether it's a placebo effect, or even  some complex chemical secret as yet unknown to science?  Stranger things have happened!  I say, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!"