Vitamin C Rich Diet May Cut Arthritis Risk

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Consumption of foods high in vitamin C

appears to protect against inflammatory polyarthritis, a form of

rheumatoid arthritis involving two or more joints, new research

suggests.

The findings, which appear in the ls of the Rheumatic Diseases,

stem from a study of more than 20,000 subjects who kept diet diaries

and were arthritis-free when the study began. The analysis focused on

73 subjects who developed inflammatory polyarthritis during follow-up

between 1993 and 2001, and 146 similar subjects who remained

arthritis-free.

Dr. Dorothy J. Pattison, from the University of Manchester in the UK,

and colleagues found that low intake of fruits, vegetables, and

vitamin C raised the risk of inflammatory polyarthritis. For example,

subjects who consumed the lowest amounts of vitamin C were three

times more likely to develop the condition than their peers who

consumed the highest amounts.

Although lower intake of fruits and vegetables seemed to increase the

arthritis risk, the trends were not statistically significant, the

researchers point out. Similarly, low intake of vitamin E and beta-

carotene was only weakly linked with an increased risk of

inflammatory polyarthritis.

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http://ard.bmjjournals.com/future/preview.shtml

Preview of July 2004 issue

ls of the Rheumatic Diseases

CONTENTS Volume 63 Number 7, 7/1/2004

.........

Vitamin C and the risk of developing inflammatory polyarthritis: a

prospective, nested case control study

D. J. Pattison, A. J. Silman, N. J. Goodson, M. Lunt, D. Bunn, R.

Luben, A. Welch, S. Bingham, K. Khaw, N. Day, and D. Symmons

Ann Rheum Dis 63: 843-847