Clarifying the Impact: Vegan Diet and Rheumatoid Arthritis Improvement

The study titled “Faecal microbial flora and disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis during a vegan diet” was conducted by researchers from universities and hospitals in Finland. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that causes painful swelling and stiffness in the joints. Some RA patients report that special diets help their symptoms. The goal of this study was to understand if an uncooked vegan diet impacts gut bacteria and RA disease activity.

Methods

The researchers recruited 43 adult RA patients. They randomly split patients into two groups:

Test group: Received a 4 week uncooked vegan diet devoid of animal products and rich in lactobacilli bacteria from fermented foods.

Control group: Maintained normal diets omnivorous with meat.

The patients gave stool samples and underwent clinical evaluations assessing RA symptoms before, during and after the diet period. Based on the assessments, each patient got a disease improvement score. Those with bigger decreases in RA symptoms and inflammation markers were categorized as “high improvement.”

The stool samples were analyzed to detect changes in gut bacteria populations between the groups over time. The analysis focused on bacterial fatty acids which differ by species.

Results

The vegan diet brought on a substantial change in gut flora among the test group patients. Those seeing the most RA improvement with the diet also had distinct bacterial changes compared to other test group patients. The control group’s gut bacteria stayed fairly steady throughout the study period.

5 test patients (28%) were high improvement. This group averaged a 65% drop in RA symptoms versus only 33% for other test patients and 22% for controls. Greater changes in intestinal flora correlated with better disease activity outcomes on the vegan diet.

Discussion

The findings suggest an association exists between alterations in gut bacteria and diet's effects on RA activity. Specifically, the vegan diet shifted microbial profiles in patients experiencing notable relief of RA inflammation and pain. But cause and effect are still uncertain - changes in disease activity might also drive shifts in intestinal flora.

Conclusion

In RA patients, a lactobacilli-rich vegan diet significantly changed gut microbial communities over 4 weeks. Patients seeing the greatest changes also had the most RA symptom improvement on the diet. This highlights a potential link between intestinal flora and diet's influence on autoimmune disease activity warranting further investigation.

Peltonen, R., Nenonen, M., Helve, T., Hänninen, O., Toivanen, P., & Eerola, E. (1997). "Faecal microbial flora and disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis during a vegan diet." Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology, 26(6), 428-433. doi: 10.3109/03009749709105331. PMID: 9117178. Available at: PubMed.