Study finds gluten-free diets benefit rheumatoid arthritis
Tuesday, 18 Mar 2008 15:30
Cutting out bread could benefit people with rheumatoid arthritis
People with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) could improve their health by following a gluten-free diet, Swedish researchers have found.
Their study revealed that avoiding gluten can lead to a reduction in cardiovascular risk factors including high cholesterol.
Changing diets also raised the levels of natural antibodies against the damaging compounds in the body that cause symptoms of RA.
Scientists at the Karolinska Institute studied 66 people with RA.
Thirty-eight of the volunteers followed a gluten-free diet while the other 28 ate a well-balanced but non-vegan diet for one year.
Writing in the Arthritis Research and Therapy journal, the researchers say symptoms of cardiovascular disease were more pronounced in the control group and blood levels of oxidised LDL-cholesterol, a risk factor for atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), were lower in the group which kept to the vegan diet.
Body mass index of people following a vegan diet was also lower than in the control group.
"Our findings suggest a new mechanism by which the level of natural protective antibodies can be increased," said lead researcher Professor Johan Frostegard.
"They also show that diet can have effects on the immune system with implications for the incidence of disease."
The researchers say further studies are needed to determine which particular aspects of the diet help the most.