Vegan diet could help arthritis

By Carla Bevan  on Tuesday 18 March 2008

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People suffering from rheumatoid arthritis are being urged to consider switching to a gluten-free, vegan diet.



A new study in Stockholm has discovered that such an eating plan could reduce arthritis sufferers' high risk of heart attacks and strokes.



Rheumatoid arthritis, which affects an astonishing 350,000 individuals in the UK alone, is linked to an inflammation of the arteries. It is therefore important that sufferers control the amount of cholesterol in their diet, something the Arthritis Research and Therapy study found can be achieved by excluding animal and gluten products from someone's diet.



The Arthritis Research Campaign, however, has urged caution for anyone planning to change their eating habits.



'A vegan diet may be helpful in reducing cholesterol, but it is difficult to get enough of some important nutrients on a vegan diet,' a spokesperson said.



'However we do know that, for example, eating oily fish can reduce inflammation, and risk factors for developing the condition include high consumption of red meat and low consumption of fruit and vegetables, so diet does play a role - however limited.'

Tuesday 18 March 2008

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Of course a Vegan diet will help the symptoms of RA - it's simply because iflammation in the body requires fat to happen. If you have an extremely low fat diet you get less inflamation. However, as a rheumatologist once told me, a totally fat-free diet may reduce joint inflammation, but you'll end up a skeleton with other worse health risks hanging over you. Also for the record, there were only 58 people in this trial, so it is not even statistically significant (eg in such a small group, the results can be far too influenced by the type and health profiles of the people within it. You need at least 500 people to make it worthy of unbiased scientific consideration. My thoughts are that any RA sufferer (like myself) will naturally experiment with diet alterations to improve their symptoms, but going Vegan for this purpose should not be taken lightly, nor should it replace existing treatments, as it can ONLY help the symptoms, not cure the disease or stop it progressing.
Comment by Paul on March 20 12:22

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