Gluten-Free Vegan Diet helps Rheumatoid Arthritis

Who would have guessed? A gluten-free diet appears to benefit an entirely new target-audience beyond just the traditional Coeliac / Celiac Disease sufferer or the wheat-free dieter. A brand new study coming out of research performed at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm surfaced some rather fascinating results. Researchers used a Gluten-Free Vegan diet as a means to improve the long-term health of people with rheumatoid arthritis - and the results were quite promising!

Some of the key findings of the gluten-free vegan diet among the test group included:

• Reduced LDL and oxLDL levels (a good thing!)
  
• Raised antiPC antibodies (more good news, since these are hypothesized to protect against cardiovascular disease!)
  
• Lowered the body-mass index (BMI) of the volunteers in that group (I think we can all appreciate the promise of lower BMI) :)
• Levels of other fatty molecules, including triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) stayed the same.

These results have now shown that diet (in particular a gluten-free diet that is vegan in nature) could benefit the long-term health of people with rheumatoid arthritis. It was note d that a larger study group will be needed to figure out which aspects of the diet helped improve these various markers the most, as this particular group was 66 persons total, with 38 randomly assigned to the gluten-free diet, and 28 assigned to a well-balanced (though non-vegan) diet for a period of one year.

I find this encouraging on a few levels. As always, anything that raises awareness of even what a "gluten free diet" is can certainly be a good thing, as it will likely also make more people interested in clear gluten-free labeling laws and the like. In addition, I extracted from this outcome that the gluten-free vegan diet offered some health benefits that we can all enjoy, regardless of whether we suffer from Rheumatoid arthritis.

I am not vegan personally, though I don't consume very much in the way of animal products. Certainly some of my favorite gluten-free diet foods happen to be vegan, and I actually tend towards that side of the grocery aisle, but I still have a weakness (especially) for some wonderful dairy products now and then!

Now, if only this study could have included a third distinct group - gluten-free with dairy and eggs - and shown that to be equally healthful... that would get me close enough to culinary bliss! :) Perhaps wishful thinking, but it wouldn't surprise me if there is still plenty of benefit to being a gluten-free vegetarian (that occasionally consumes some dairy and egg products).