The comparison of dietary intake of effective foods on clinical outcomes of rheumatoid arthritis: A case - control study

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the common chronic diseases. Some vegetables and oils may reduce the inflammation in RA and citrus fruits, tomatoes, red meat and salty pickles may worsen the pain and tenderness in joints. The objective of this study is to compare dietary intake of some foods in female RA patients with healthy control group. In this case-control study, 44 female RA patients were compared with 41 healthy age-matched controls. Quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was filled to achieve dietary patterns as interview. The data were analyzed by Kolmogrov-Smirnov and histogram for normality test and Mann U Whitney test for comparing differences between groups using SPSS software version 13.5. mean ± standard deviation of body mass index (BMI) was 28.6±3.95 and 28.23±4.32 in RA and control groups respectively. Weekly intake of tomato, cantaloupe, tea and spinach in cases was higher than that of controls (p<0.001); although yogurt (p=0.001), berries (p=0.01), peach (p<0.001), coffee (p<0.001), fast foods (p=0.009), fried foods (p=0.003) and mango (p<0.001) were less common foods in RA patients rather than controls. RA patients had more rate of overweight, but difference between two groups were not significant. The intake of some allergen foods like tomato and cantaloupe was higher in RA patients and some antioxidant-rich foods were eaten less in patients compared with controls; so,weight reduction and consumption of more fresh vegetables are recommended.