Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is often considered an auto-immune disease with a strong inflammatory response. TNF-a plays a major role in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (Moreland, 2001). Dietary etiology and the issue of whether diet can favourably influence the regression of the disease remain topics of public and scientific discourse. Foods most often implicated include cereals, animal milk, meat, eggs and citrus fruits (Darlington, 1991).
Beneficial effects in the short and long term have been observed in diets that avoid potentially dangerous foods. According to Darlington and Ramsey (1991), 75% of a total of 100 RA cases show clear improvement and 33% are considered cured simply by changes in diet. Another positive effect is that patients can reduce or interrupt their drug therapy, which is often accompanied by major side effects. Recently, a study of 66 subjects with RA showed that in 40% of cases those who followed a gluten-free vegetarian diet exhibited significant improvement in their symptoms compared to a control group on a balanced non-vegetarian diet (Hafstrom et al., 2001). The concentrations of IgG anti-beta-lactoglobulin and anti-gliadin diminished in the responder group, but remained unchanged in the non-responder and control groups. A change in diet therefore has a beneficial influence on RA. This effect may be due to a reduction in the immune response to food antigens eliminated by a dietary change.
Rheumatoid arthritis is thus a sign of the presence of food-associated IgG and a prompt to selectively exclude certain offending foods from the diet, recognizing that the profile of food intolerances varies considerably from one individual to another. A follow-up of specific IgG titres and inflammatory cytokines would also make it possible to judge the effectiveness of the diet at the biological level.
