Description

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common chronic autoimmune disease requiring lifelong pharmacological treatment and causing significant burden to the patient and society. Evidence has suggested that it is important that patients take an active role in their self-management to improve their overall health and quality of life. Effective self-management strategies often involve changes in lifestyle. We have previously conducted a lifestyle intervention study to reduce sedentary behavior and increase physical activity in 150 patients with RA. An individually tailored intervention motivating patients to self-manage their arthritis by reducing sedentary behavior and replacing it with light-intensity physical activity reduced disease activity, e.g., levels of pain and fatigue. Nutrition may be another important part of self-management strategies in patients with RA. Emerging evidence suggests that an anti-inflammatory diet may reduce disease activity and improve quality of life among patients with RA.3 Compared to a diet including animal foods, a Plant-Based Diet (PBD) is believed to include less of the pro-inflammatory, and more of the anti-inflammatory, ingredients, and thus may have the potential to reduce disease activity in patients with RA.

Our overall and long-term aim is to test and evaluate the effect of a PBD intervention on disease activity in patients with RA in a later randomized controlled trial (RCT). As a first step towards this, we wish to investigate strengths and limitations of the planned intervention, which introduces a PBD to patients with RA.

Thus, in a feasibility study, we aim to investigate the feasibility of the intervention, including recruitment procedures, randomization, intervention elements, outcome assessments and retention. Following a daily PBD will involve inclusion of several new plant-based foods and changes in earlier diets for patients with RA. As such, the feasibility study will also aim to investigate acceptability of the intervention, including how people with RA respond to the intervention elements and how a PBD affect their daily lives (e.g. how easy is it to prepare plant-based foods, how desirable is it to eat, and how does it affect digestion). Ultimately, the findings from this feasibility study will provide crucial insights into whether a full-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT), designed to evaluate the effects of a 100% plant-based diet on patients with RA, is a feasible and realistic undertaking.