Diet and RA

kav84

Hello,

I have recently been diagnosed with RA after having a baby and I was wondering if anyone had found that following a particular diet can improve the symptoms of RA? If anyone has any evidence based info to share or personal stories/advice I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

dreamdaisy

Hello, I am sorry that your pregnancy triggered the RA, it's not an unknown phenomena, alas. Diet won't affect the disease as such but it may help to keep your body healthier. RA is caused by an over-active immune system and diet will not address that issue whereas the meds do. Some become vegetarian, others follow a Mediterranean-style diet, others don't change a thing - the disease rumbles on regardless. I wish you well. DD

LignumVitae

Arthritis Research have a study of all alternative therapy etc for arthritis which overviews all existing research and extrapolates results internationall. They include diet in this and as I recall, for RA, the findings were that no diet could control or manage RA but that if you felt like trying a diet then following a mediterranean one was the best. As I recall the overall conclusions for RA were that no alternatives did anything of much use and you were best off with the right meds. It is worth looking at the report though. It puts to bed all the wondering about whether something else will work. I have an inflammatory arthritis similar to RA, my diet is somewhere on the med diet spectrum and more veggie than anything. I do prefer to eat less meat but it's probably just that I'm not working on digesting hunks of flesh that leaves me feeling better rather than any clear benefit to my arthritis if that makes sense.

pot80

Among the booklets produced by the arc (the arthritis research campaign) is one on diet and arthritis. I was given this along with others in the series by the rheumatologist. One of the main points concerns keeping the weight so that it does not put stress on the joints. Fortunately I have always been on the thin side so no adjustment was needed. The only change I made was to eat 4 Brazil nuts/day since those with RA are often found to be low in selenium. Care should be taken not to overdo the Brazil nuts. Best wishes for happy future.

kav84

Thank you everyone! I suppose a healthy balanced diet is the best way forward.