[Diet and rheumatoid arthritis]

Abstract

The dietary treatment of rheumatoid arthritis is a controversial issue. Several patients have experienced that their diet does affect the disease activity. For many years this has been explained by rheumatologists either as a result of natural variations in the disease activity, or as reflecting a placebo effect. In recent years several clinical trials seem to support patients' claims of an interrelation between their diet and the disease activity. Possible explanations of this interrelation are: 1) food allergy/intolerance, 2) dietary factors which modify the inflammatory process, 3) dietary factors which modify the bacterial flora in the gastrointestinal tract. In this article we sum up the results of several clinical trials on the dietary treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and discuss the three possible explanations of the effects.