In a new clinical study, an anti-inflammatory eating pattern similar to the Mediterranean diet was able to significantly reduce several markers of systemic inflammation in a group of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers compared to a control group.
 
The research, appearing in The Journal of Nutrition, involved recruiting 50 participants who were diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and administering to them one of two diets in a crossover fashion for ten weeks. The dietary intervention group was given a diet similar to the Mediterranean diet, consisting strongly of whole grains, fatty fish, legumes, nuts, fruits, berries, and vegetables. However, the authors substituted the Mediterranean staple of olive oil with canola oil, and also further enriched the diet with probiotics as well.
 
This diet was compared against what the researchers called a typical Western diet, one that is high in refined grains, red meat, and chicken, and low in fruits and vegetables. The participants received one of these two diets via home deliveries of groceries with recipes and menus, designed to cover about half of a person’s dietary intake, before the participants switched their respective diets after a 4-month washout period.
 
Blood samples were collected throughout the course of the study in order to conduct a chemical assay on key inflammatory markers associated with rheumatoid arthritis. The autoimmune disease, which has a lifelong disabling effect, largely has an unknown etiology. It involves a constant state of elevated inflammation linked to risk of comorbidities and pain, swelling, and reduced joint function, and while pharmaceutical treatment can manage symptoms, there is no cure.
 
Based on the analyses of participants’ blood samples, it was shown that compliance with the anti-inflammatory diet resulted in enhanced anti-inflammatory activity beyond that seen in the control, even in participants who were taking medications for the management of their symptoms.
 
Firstly, a significant effect was seen on ESR, a clinically-validated marker of systemic inflammation, and several foods found within the diet could have been responsible for this change, the authors noted.
 
Further, significant reductions in chemokines were seen, namely CXCL1, CXCL5, and CXCL6, known to have activity at the sites of injury, infection or inflammation. Patients with RA have historically been noted to have higher concentrations of these inflammatory compounds in their synovial fluid, the authors noted.
 
Lastly, the authors noted that the dietary intervention was linked to reductions in TNFSF14, which has been shown in previous research to be significantly elevated in arthritis patients compared to controls. Other studies, the authors noted, have linked this compound to bone degradation in RA patients.
 
“In conclusion, our results indicate that a Mediterranean-like diet intervention with proposed anti-inflammatory foods compared with a Western diet reduced the systemic inflammation in patients with RA that had a high compliance to the dietary intervention,” the authors concluded. However, due to the fact that multiple dietary changes were investigated at once, the results are meant to be interpreted carefully, and require further investigations in RA patients.