I'm going to try this

[Guest guest]

Has anyone tried this before? I'm going for it!!

Vegetarian Diet & Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) sufferers could find significant relief by

following a vegetarian diet according two studies (1) (2) conducted at the

Institute of Immunology and Rheumatology, National Hospital, Oslo, Norway.

The researchers had previously observed that a significant improvement can be

obtained in rheumatoid arthritis patients by a short period of fasting

followed by an individually adjusted vegetarian diet for one year and so they

continued their line of research by monitoring the patients for a period of two

years to see whether any benefits could be sustained over a longer period.

The researchers compared the change in the 124 patients’ conditions (53

who ate a strict vegetarian diet, 71 who ate an omnivorous diet) from baseline

(i.e. the commencement of the study ) to the time of the follow-up

examination. The following variables favoured diet responders: pain score,

duration of

morning stiffness, Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire index, number of

tender joints, Ritchie's articular index, number of swollen joints, ESR,

platelet count and white blood cell count. The differences between patients

who

responded to dietary therapy was significant for all the clinical

variables, except for grip strength. All of the patients were assessed for

personality or psychological factors which could influence their responses.

The

patients who participated in the clinical trial differed significantly from

other

RA patients. Firstly, they had a higher belief or expectation in the

effectiveness of 'alternative', unconventional forms of treatment was higher.

But, of

the patients who were assigned to a vegetarian diet, there was no

significant difference between those who responded and those who didn’t with

regard to

the personality or character scores although one factor that was noticeable

was that those who responded to the diet had a significantly lower belief in

the effect of ordinary medical treatment compared with diet non-responders.

The researchers concluded that their findings clearly indicate that large

proportion of patients with rheumatoid arthritis can benefit from dietary

manipulations and that the improvement can be sustained through a two-year

period

and that these changes could not be explained by psychological

characteristics of the patients.

Encouraged by their results the researchers set out to identify the

precise biochemical and immunological factors that were affected through a

vegetarian diet. No changes were noted in samples taken from those patients who

ate

meat but 14 of the 15 measured variables responded positively in the

vegetarians and the differences were statistically significant for leukocyte

count,

IgM rheumatoid factor RF, and the complement components C3 and C4 after

only one month of treat ment. Most of the laboratory variables declined

considerably in the vegetarians who improved according to clinical variables

(symptoms), indicating a substantial reduction in inflammatory activity.

Take Care

Babs