Vitamin C Rich Diet May Cut Arthritis Risk

[Guest guest]

On Sunday, Jun 13, 2004, at 19:09 Asia/Tokyo, gts wrote:

> Although lower intake of fruits and vegetables seemed

> to increase the arthritis risk, the trends were not

> statistically significant, the researchers point out.

This totally burns me up. 'Not Statistically Significant' means there

is no connection shown in this study. In spite of which they make some

claim NOT supported by the study. In any case, it seems likely that any

possible connection between VC and arthritis is so small as to be

worthless for prediction on an individual level. More diet

pseudo-science.

[Guest guest]

Vitamin C Rich Diet May Cut Arthritis Risk By J. Brown, MD

July 12, 2004

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.

The findings contrast with a recent report linking high doses of vitamin

C with worsening disease in guinea pigs with osteoarthritis, the more

common type of arthritis that occurs with aging.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Pattison said that these opposite

findings may reflect the fact that rheumatoid arthritis and

osteoarthritis are caused by different physiologic problems. With

rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease, the body attacks itself,

she explained. In contrast, osteoarthritis involves a degenerative

process that worsens over time.

Pattison added that her group has a study being reviewed for publication

that looks at the effect of meat consumption on the risk of arthritis.

SOURCE: ls of the Rheumatic Diseases, July 2004.

[Guest guest]

Outstanding find Gretchen!

rQn I