| In 2007, a preliminary study was conducted to determine if an anti-inflammatory diet would mitigate symptoms associated with the inflammatory chronic autoimmune disease, myositis. While promising results were obtained, the data was very limited. Therefore, an additional study was undertaken to add more subjects and further assess the value of an anti-inflammatory diet as a potential adjunctive measure in the treatment for myositis. With the addition of the new subjects, the experimental diet resulted in significant improvements in grip and leg strength as well as in an index of ease in performing daily tasks and in the Beck Depression Inventory. The index of anti-inflammatory food consumption developed for the previous study significantly correlated with several of these improvements. In order to refine the nutritional analysis, the current study introduced computer-generated nutritional analyses to quantify new subjects' intake of anti-inflammatory factors, omega-3 essential fatty acids, antioxidants, saturated fats, and glycemic index values. The small sample of five new subjects on the experimental diet achieved significant improvements only in depression scores and weight loss. Improvement in depression scores was best predicted by improvements in glycemic index, antioxidant consumption and inflammatory factors. Weight loss was best predicted by improvements in inflammatory factors, glycemic index and antioxidant consumption. The overall data suggests that dietary interventions may be a useful adjunctive therapy for this autoimmune disease. However, it may be useful to consider multi-factorial dietary interventions, rather than to consider anti-inflammatory factors alone. |
