Red meat linked with rheumatoid arthritis

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Red meat linked with rheumatoid arthritis

Thu 2 December, 2004 19:13

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews & storyID=632023 & se\

ction=news

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who eat lots of red meat may be raising

their risk of rheumatoid arthritis, an incurable and crippling disease,

researchers have reported.

 

A study of 25,000 people living in Europe shows that those who ate the

most red meat had double the risk of rheumatoid arthritis, compared to

those who ate the least amount.

 

And people who ate more protein overall, including other forms of meat

and plant protein, also had a higher risk of the disease while eating

fat did not seem to raise the risk, the researchers found.

 

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune

cells mistakenly attack healthy joints.

 

Maybe eating meat somehow sets the body up to attack similar components,

the researchers wrote in the latest issue of the journal Arthritis &

Rheumatism.

 

" It may be that the high collagen content of meat leads to collagen

sensitization and consequent production of anticollagen antibodies, "

Alan Silman and Deborah Symmons at the University of Manchester wrote in

their report.

 

" Meat consumption may be linked to either additives or even infectious

agents, but, again, there is no evidence as to what might be important

in relation to rheumatoid arthritis. "

 

Silman and Symmons's team worked with data from 25,000 men and women

taking part in the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer. These

volunteers kept a careful food diary for a week, had blood samples drawn

to confirm the kinds of nutrients they ate most, and have been followed

since for more than a decade.

 

About 35 patients developed confirmed rheumatoid arthritis. The RA

patients were more likely to have been former smokers and tended to eat

less food containing vitamin C.

 

The most striking difference, the researchers said, was in terms of

eating red meat.

 

" A high level of red meat consumption may represent a novel risk factor

for inflammatory arthritis or may act as a marker for a group of persons

with an increased risk from other lifestyle causes, " the researchers wrote.

 

" It is unclear whether the association is a causative one, " the report

said.