My PhD topic is dietary strategies for rheumatoid arthritis, with a focus on elimination-reintroduction protocols. I studied through the Human Performance Research Institute, at AUT Millennium Campus in Auckland, New Zealand.
I carried out three connected studies. A pilot study test the effect and feasibility of the auto-immune protocol (AIP) diet in nine people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The results have been published. Here is an overview of the study and results.
I also conducted a one year post intervention follow-up to see how participants RA symptoms were a year later, how they managed food reintroductions and analysed their current diet. The study is awaiting publication.
The final part of my PhD was a scoping review where I collected all the studies I could find that used an elimination- reintroduction protocol, and did an overview of the study protocols, as well collated information on foods that were most commonly experienced as exacerbating RA symptoms. The study overview is here.
My previous research was part of my post-grad diploma in nutrition at Massey, this research was qualitative:
“An investigation into the use of a Paleolithic diet by people with rheumatoid arthritis”
In this qualitative study, I interviewed 10 people with RA who had been on a paleo diet for at least 6 months, all participants attributed the paleo diet to reducing RA symptoms and disease markers like antibodies and inflammation. (All these people went from severe pain to none or very little using the paleo diet, and some came completely off medications)
The interviews set out to find out a number of things: find out what motivated people to change to a paleo diet, what challenges they encountered changing to the diet and maintaining it, and how they managed those challenges. Secondly, I asked them to describe the diet they consumed, and what they eat and don’t eat with respect to the perceived effect food has on RA symptoms.
An overview of results from the interviews are in this post.