Topics » Disease » Can a Whole Food, Plant-Based Diet Help Lupus?
T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies

Reports show that fasting and plant-food diets can improve symptoms of autoimmune conditions, but TrueNorth wants to get more specific.

The TrueNorth Health Center has specialized in treating patients with water-only fasting and an exclusively whole-plant-food diet for 35 years. Clinicians and researchers at TrueNorth Health are interested in the effects of water-only fasting followed by long-term adherence to an exclusively whole-plant-food diet free of salt, oil, sugar, and gluten on lupus disease activity. Lupus, or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system produces antibodies that attack healthy tissue. Lupus is particularly devastating because it can damage any organ as well as multiple organs at the same time.

“Lupus is particularly devastating because it can damage any organ as well as multiple organs at the same time.”

Although lupus survival rates have increased over the last 50 years, long-term morbidity from disease progression and adverse treatment effects can result in physical disability and psychosocial challenges that impact one’s quality of life and ability to work. This disease leads to substantial direct and indirect cost to individuals and society, which disproportionately affects disadvantaged populations. Costs are driven by disease activity and disease damage.

Lupus Nutrition Research

Diet is emerging as a cost-effective treatment for chronic inflammatory conditions, including autoimmune disorders such as lupus. There are reports showing that fasting and plant-food diets improved clinical symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, another autoimmune condition. There have been a number of studies on the effects of individual dietary components, especially those found in plant foods, on lupus.

Only three published case reports exist that describe dietary intervention beyond specific nutrient supplementation on lupus patients. These reports showed that patients had positive improvements after implementing dietary changes (research in animals further supports these findings).

What Causes Lupus?

Why a person gets lupus is not fully understood, but environment, epigenetics, gut health, and inflammation have all been connected to its disease risk and/or progression. The biological mechanisms that regulate lupus are also complex and poorly understood. This complexity makes it difficult to treat lupus and has made it difficult to find effective treatments.

Lupus Symptoms

Since lupus can affect any organ, it causes a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations, depending on the damaged tissue. Symptoms may include extreme fatigue, fever, joint pain, skin rashes, photosensitivity, shortness of breath, and chest pain. When clinical symptoms are present, laboratory tests—including complete blood count, electrolyte analysis, kidney and liver function tests, markers of inflammation, and more specific measures of autoantibodies (anti-nuclear, anti-dsDNA, etc.)—can be performed to substantiate the findings. There are currently no tests available that can definitively diagnose lupus, so it is diagnosed using a combination of clinical evidence and laboratory results.

Lupus Treatments and Side Effects

Unfortunately, there is currently no cure for lupus. It is conventionally managed using treatments such as corticosteroids, antimalarials, and cytotoxic/immunosuppressive drugs that primarily act by reducing inflammation and immunological responses through nonspecific mechanisms. These treatments manage the disease to varying degrees, but at the cost of patients having a higher vulnerability to infectious diseases and risk of other serious side effects.

The treatment relies on a discussion with your doctor, which takes into account the clinical and biological manifestations, risks and benefits, and affordability. Despite existing treatments and decades of active research, there remains an important need for effective therapies with low risk of adverse events.

TrueNorth Health Foundation is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. The guiding principles that inform the work of the Foundation rests on the understanding that the human organism has tremendous internal capacity for building, maintaining, and recovering health when exposed to a health-promoting environment. Central to that understanding is the well-documented observation that, except in unusual circumstances, health is the result of healthy living and disease the result of unhealthy living. When it comes to necessary medical or other therapeutic intervention, the ideal goal should be the recovery of health and not merely palliation of symptoms.

The Foundation hopes to empower people of all ages to maximize their health potential. Most people seem relatively healthy during their young years and middle age regardless of their individual health practices. But, too often, these same people spend the later years of their lives in a markedly debilitated state, unable to enjoy life to the fullest. A primary goal of the Foundation is to learn the steps people can take to maximize the length and quality of their lives.

* This article was featured in the Summer 2019 issue of the National Health Association’s magazine, Health Science. It was reprinted with permission from Dr. Alan Goldhamer from the TrueNorth Health Foundation.

References

  1. Kamen DL. Environmental influences on systemic lupus erythematosus expression. Rheum Dis Clin North Am. 2014;40(3):401-412, vii. doi:10.1016/j.rdc.2014.05.003
  2. Lightfoot YL, Blanco LP, Kaplan MJ. Metabolic abnormalities and oxidative stress in lupus. Curr Opin Rheumatol. 2017;29(5):442-449. doi:10.1097/BOR.0000000000000413
  3. Ruiz L, López P, Suárez A, Sánchez B, Margolles A. The role of gut microbiota in lupus: what we know in 2018? Expert Rev Clin Immunol. 2018;14(10):787-792. doi:10.1080/1744666X.2018.1519395
  4. Mazzone R, Zwergel C, Artico M, et al. The emerging role of epigenetics in human autoimmune disorders. Clin Epigenetics. 2019;11(1):34. doi:10.1186/s13148-019-0632-2
  5. COJOCARU M, COJOCARU IM, SILOSI I, VRABIE CD. Manifestations of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Maedica (Buchar). 2011;6(4):330-336. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3391953/. Accessed April 23, 2019.
  6. Yildirim-Toruner C, Diamond B. Current and Novel Therapeutics in Treatment of SLE. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2011;127(2):303-314. doi:10.1016/j.jaci.2010.12.1087
  7. Ruiz-Irastorza G, Olivares N, Ruiz-Arruza I, Martinez-Berriotxoa A, Egurbide M-V, Aguirre C. Predictors of major infections in systemic lupus erythematosus. Arthritis Res Ther. 2009;11(4):R109. doi:10.1186/ar2764
  8. Tektonidou MG, Wang Z, Dasgupta A, Ward MM. Burden of Serious Infections in Adults with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2015;67(8):1078-1085. doi:10.1002/acr.22575
  9. Bakshi J, Segura BT, Wincup C, Rahman A. Unmet Needs in the Pathogenesis and Treatment of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Clin Rev Allergy Immunol. 2018;55(3):352-367. doi:10.1007/s12016-017-8640-5
  10. Seawell AH, Danoff-Burg S. Psychosocial research on systemic lupus erythematosus: a literature review. Lupus. 2004;13(12):891-899. doi:10.1191/0961203304lu1083rr
  11. McElhone K, Abbott J, Teh LS. A review of health related quality of life in systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus. 2006;15(10):633-643. doi:10.1177/0961203306071710
  12. Scofield L, Reinlib L, Alarcón GS, Cooper GS. Employment and disability issues in systemic lupus erythematosus: a review. Arthritis Rheum. 2008;59(10):1475-1479. doi:10.1002/art.24113
  13. Barber MRW, Clarke AE. Socioeconomic consequences of systemic lupus erythematosus: Current Opinion in Rheumatology. 2017;29(5):480-485. doi:10.1097/BOR.0000000000000416
  14. Galland L. Diet and Inflammation. Nutrition in Clinical Practice. 2010;25(6):634-640. doi:10.1177/0884533610385703
  15. Vieira SM, Pagovich OE, Kriegel MA. Diet, microbiota and autoimmune diseases. Lupus. 2014;23(6):518-526. doi:10.1177/0961203313501401
  16. Thorburn AN, Macia L, Mackay CR. Diet, Metabolites, and “Western-Lifestyle” Inflammatory Diseases. Immunity. 2014;40(6):833-842. doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2014.05.014
  17. Rodríguez Huerta MD, Trujillo-Martín MM, Rúa-Figueroa Í, et al. Healthy lifestyle habits for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: A systemic review. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2016;45(4):463-470. doi:10.1016/j.semarthrit.2015.09.003
  18. de Medeiros MCS, Medeiros JCA, de Medeiros HJ, Leitão JCG de C, Knackfuss MI. Dietary intervention and health in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: A systematic review of the evidence. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. April 2018:1–8. doi:10.1080/10408398.2018.1463966
  19. Dall’Ara F, Cutolo M, Andreoli L, Tincani A, Paolino S. Vitamin D and systemic lupus erythematous: a review of immunological and clinical aspects. Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2018;36(1):153-162.
  20. Shoenfeld Y, Giacomelli R, Azrielant S, Berardicurti O, Reynolds JA, Bruce IN. Vitamin D and systemic lupus erythematosus – The hype and the hope. Autoimmun Rev. 2018;17(1):19-23. doi:10.1016/j.autrev.2017.11.004
  21. de Medeiros MCS, Medeiros JCA, de Medeiros HJ, Leitão JCG de C, Knackfuss MI. Dietary intervention and health in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: A systematic review of the evidence. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. April 2018:1-8. doi:10.1080/10408398.2018.1463966
  22. Minami Y, Sasaki T, Arai Y, Kurisu Y, Hisamichi S. Diet and systemic lupus erythematosus: a 4 year prospective study of Japanese patients. J Rheumatol. 2003;30(4):747-754.
  23. Aparicio-Soto M, Sánchez-Hidalgo M, Alarcón-de-la-Lastra C. An update on diet and nutritional factors in systemic lupus erythematosus management. Nutr Res Rev. 2017;30(1):118-137. doi:10.1017/S0954422417000026
  24. Shigemasa C, Tanaka T, Mashiba H. Effect of vegetarian diet on systemic lupus erythematosus. Lancet. 1992;339(8802):1177.
  25. Danao-Camara TC, Shintani TT. The dietary treatment of inflammatory arthritis: case reports and review of the literature. Hawaii Med J. 1999;58(5):126-131.
  26. Brooke Goldner M. Six Week Raw Vegan Nutrition Protocol Rapidly Reverses Lupus Nephritis: A Case Series. ijdrp. 2019;1(1). https://ijdrp.org/index.php/ijdrp/article/view/47. Accessed April 6, 2019.
  27. Corman LC. The role of diet in animal models of systemic lupus erythematosus: possible implications for human lupus. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 1985;15(1):61-69.
  28. Izui S, Fernandes G, Hara I, et al. Low-calorie diet selectively reduces expression of retroviral envelope glycoprotein gp70 in sera of NZB x NZW F1 hybrid mice. J Exp Med. 1981;154(4):1116-1124.
  29. Fernandes G, Friend P, Yunis EJ, Good RA. Influence of dietary restriction on immunologic function and renal disease in (NZB x NZW) F1 mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1978;75(3):1500-1504.
  30. Golbidi S, Daiber A, Korac B, Li H, Essop MF, Laher I. Health Benefits of Fasting and Caloric Restriction. Curr Diab Rep. 2017;17(12):123. doi:10.1007/s11892-017-0951-7
  31. Stamp LK, James MJ, Cleland LG. Diet and rheumatoid arthritis: a review of the literature. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2005;35(2):77-94. doi:10.1016/j.semarthrit.2005.05.001

Copyright 2024 Center for Nutrition Studies. All rights reserved.

Program Overview

  • 23,000+ students
  • 100% online, learn at your own pace
  • No prerequisites
  • Continuing education credits