Antioxidants in vegan diet and rheumatic disorders

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Toxicology 2000 Nov 30;155(1-3):45-53

Antioxidants in vegan diet and rheumatic disorders.

Hanninen, Kaartinen K, Rauma AL, Nenonen M, Torronen R, Hakkinen AS,

Adlercreutz H, Laakso J.

Department of Physiology, University of Kuopio, Finland.

osmo.hanninen@...

Plants are rich natural sources of antioxidants in addition to other

nutrients. Interventions and cross sectional studies on subjects

consuming uncooked vegan diet called living food (LF) have been

carried out. We have clarified the efficacy of LF in rheumatoid

diseases as an example of a health problem where inflammation is one

of the main concerns. LF is an uncooked vegan diet and consists of

berries, fruits, vegetables and roots, nuts, germinated seeds and

sprouts, i.e. rich sources of carotenoids, vitamins C and E. The

subjects eating LF showed highly increased levels of beta and alfa

carotenes, lycopen and lutein in their sera. Also the increases of

vitamin C and vitamin E (adjusted to cholesterol) were statistically

significant. As the berry intake was 3-fold compared to controls the

intake of polyphenolic compounds like quercetin, myricetin and

kaempherol was much higher than in the omnivorous controls. The LF

diet is rich in fibre, substrate of lignan production, and the

urinary excretion of polyphenols like enterodiol and enterolactone

as well as secoisolaricirecinol were much increased in subjects

eating LF. The shift of fibromyalgic subjects to LF resulted in a

decrease of their joint stiffness and pain as well as an improvement

of their self-experienced health. The rheumatoid arthritis patients

eating the LF diet also reported similar positive responses and the

objective measures supported this finding. The improvement of

rheumatoid arthritis was significantly correlated with the

day-to-day fluctuation of subjective symptoms. In conclusion the

rheumatoid patients subjectively benefited from the vegan diet rich

in antioxidants, lactobacilli and fibre, and this was also seen in

objective measures.

Publication Types:

* Clinical Trial

* Randomized Controlled Trial

PMID: 11156742 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]