Antioxidants and Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Cooked Vegetables, Olive Oil May Curb Inflammatory Triggers in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Noel Peterson, ND
Researchers from Harvard Medical School, University of Athens Medical School, and Newton Wellesley Hospital in Boston report that people who eat more cooked vegetables and olive oil, two staples of a traditional Mediterranean diet, have a much lower chance of developing RA.
"Persons in the lower category of olive oil consumption had a 2.5 times higher risk of developing RA than did persons in the highest category of consumption," they concluded, after examining dietary patterns and disease rates in 145 RA patients and 188 controls in a hospital in Athens, Greece. Higher consumption of cooked vegetables was also independently linked to a reduced risk of developing RA.
The investigators surmised that cooked vegetables offered protection via the antioxidants and other beneficial substances they contained. As for the olive oil, they noted the "strong possibility that this protective effect" stems from its high percentage of omega-9 oleic acid. Oleic acid and its metabolites, such as the omega-3 eicosatrienoic acid, inhibit the production of proinflammatory prostaglandins and leukotrienes. These proinflammatory mediators are produced from omega-6 fatty acids, which are found in large amounts in the typical Western diet and are more likely to suffer oxidative damage than omega-9 monounsaturates.
The ability of dietary fatty acids to modify inflammatory mechanisms may explain their potentially powerful role in influencing both cardiovascular and RA disease processes.
In a recent editorial in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, Vincenzo Pasceri, M.D., and Edward T.H. Yeh, M.D.point out "surprising similarities in the inflammatory/immunologic response observed in atherosclerosis, in unstable angina, and in rheumatoid arthritis, the prototype of autoimmune disease." Both conditions are characterized by shifts in the immune cascade and the activation of inflammatory cells, such as macrophages and mast cells, eventually causing breakdown in collagen, an increase in T-cell stimulation, local expression of adhesion molecules, and other pathogenic mechanisms.
Understanding the inflammatory mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of RA and atherosclerosis, and how they can be modulated, can lead to "innovative and fascinating strategies" for preventing and treating these conditions, Dr. Pasceri and Dr. Yeh assert.
Source: Linos A, Kaklamani V, Kaklamani E, Koumantaki Y, Giziaki E, Papzoglou S, Mantzoros CS. Dietary factors in relation to rheumatoid arthritis:a role for olive oil and cooked vegetables? Am J Clin Nutr 1999;70:1077-82.
Pasceri V, Yeh E. A tale of two diseases: atherosclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Circulation 1999;100:2124-2126.