Trial reportPostgraduate medical journal2007
Is rheumatoid arthritis a disease that starts in the intestine? A pilot study comparing an elemental diet with oral prednisolone.
Trial report in Postgraduate medical journal, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Dietary interventions for rheumatoid arthritis.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2009Pooled it
- Gut microbiota in early and established stages of rheumatoid arthritis: from pathogenesis to promising prevention and treatment.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
- Elemental Diet as a Therapeutic Modality: A Comprehensive Review.Digestive diseases and sciences · 2024Review
- Different modalities to manage rheumatoid arthritis: an A to Z story.Future science OA · 2024Review
- The Integral Role of Diets Including Natural Products to Manage Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Narrative Review.Current issues in molecular biology · 2023Review
- Autoimmune polyendocrine syndromes associated with autoimmune rheumatic diseases.Reumatologia · 2023Review
- The Relationship between Gastrointestinal Health, Micronutrient Concentrations, and Autoimmunity: A Focus on the Thyroid.Nutrients · 2022Review
- Review
- Frequency of serological markers of rheumatoid arthritis in adult patients with active celiac disease.Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · 2022Article
- An elemental diet is effective in the management of diversion colitis.Gastroenterology and hepatology from bed to bench · 2021Article
- The Role of Nutritional Factors and Intestinal Microbiota in Rheumatoid Arthritis Development.Nutrients · 2020Review
- Nutrition Interventions in Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Potential Use of Plant-Based Diets. A Review.Frontiers in nutrition · 2019Review
- Role of Diet in Influencing Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity.The open rheumatology journal · 2018Review
- Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis with Dietary Interventions.Frontiers in nutrition · 2017Review
- Coeliac Disease With Rheumatoid Arthritis: An Unusual Association.Gastroenterology research · 2015Article
- Gastrointestinal and hepatic manifestations of rheumatoid arthritis.Digestive diseases and sciences · 2011Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis pilot study aimed to determine if an elemental diet could be used to treat patients with active rheumatoid arthritis and to compare its effect to that of oral prednisolone.
methodsThirty patients with active rheumatoid arthritis were randomly allocated to 2 weeks of treatment with an elemental diet (n = 21) or oral prednisolone 15 mg/day (n = 9). Assessments of duration of early morning stiffness (EMS), pain on a 10 cm visual analog scale (VAS), the Ritchie articular index (RAI), swollen joint score, the Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire, global patient and physician assessment, body weight, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP) and haemoglobin, were made at 0, 2, 4 and 6 weeks.
resultsAll clinical parameters improved in both groups (p<0.05) except the swollen joint score in the elemental diet group. An improvement of greater than 20% in EMS, VAS and RAI occurred in 72% of the elemental diet group and 78% of the prednisolone group. ESR, CRP and haemoglobin improved in the steroid group only (p<0.05).
conclusionsAn elemental diet for 2 weeks resulted in a clinical improvement in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis, and was as effective as a course of oral prednisolone 15 mg daily in improving subjective clinical parameters. This study supports the concept that rheumatoid arthritis may be a reaction to a food antigen(s) and that the disease process starts within the intestine.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.