Antioxidant intake, plasma antioxidants and oxidative stress in a randomized, controlled, parallel, Mediterranean dietary intervention study on patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Table 3 Comparison of plasma levels of retinol (mmol/l), antioxidants (mmol/l) and urine malondialdehyde (mmol/l) between the Mediterranean Diet (MD) group and the Control Diet (CD) group. The data are presented as mean values ± SD.

	MD group (n = 26)*			CD group (n = 25)^†
	Time (weeks after dietary shift)			Time (weeks after start of study)
	0	3	12	0	3	12
Retinol	2.32 ± 1.07	2.21 ± 0.70	2.12 ± 0.63	2.17 ± 1.15	2.23 ± 0.98	2.01 ± 0.62
β-carotene	0.56 ± 1.20	0.72 ± 1.03	0.49 ± 0.85	0.31 ± 0.21	0.43 ± 0.28	0.36 ± 0.25
Lycopene	0.35 ± 0.23	0.39 ± 0.25	0.40 ± 0.26	0.27 ± 1.17	0.30 ± 0.18	0.26 ± 0.15
Vitamin C	51 ± 16	62 ± 16	51 ± 20	54 ± 22	62 ± 20	52 ± 28
α-tocopherol	36 ± 11	33 ± 8	30 ± 9^\|\|	34 ± 7	32 ± 8	31 ± 9
α-tocopherol:(C+TG) ratio^‡	4.94 ± 1.13	5.27 ± 1.22	4.51 ± 1.27	5.12 ± 1.07	4.93 ± 1.23	4.85 ± 1.27
γ-tocopherol	2.42 ± 1.15	2.26 ± 0.96	1.85 ± 0.83^¶	2.46 ± 1.13	1.96 ± 0.63	2.06 ± 0.80
γ-tocopherol:(C+TG) ratio^‡	0.32 ± 0.15	0.34 ± 0.14	0.26 ± 0.11**	0.37 ± 0.16	0.31 ± 0.13	0.32 ± 0.12
Uric acid	293 ± 68	304 ± 75	297 ± 83	262 ± 59	261 ± 57	265 ± 73
Malondialdehyde	1.23 ± 0.52	1.21 ± 0.30	1.07 ± 0.34	1.21 ± 0.58	1.36 ± 0.58	1.24 ± 0.66
Malondialdehyde adj.^§	2.18 ± 0.75	2.51 ± 0.64	2.22 ± 0.46	2.09 ± 0.46	2.08 ± 0.54	2.15 ± 0.78

*Complete data on plasma concentrations of vitamin C and uric acid were only available for 25 diet group subjects. Complete data on plasma α-tocopherol were available for 24 diet group subjects. †Complete data on plasma concentrations of lycopene were only available for 22 control group subjects. Complete data regarding the other antioxidants were available for 23 control subjects. ‡C = plasma total cholesterol, TG = plasma triglycerides, i.e. tocopherol:(cholesterol+triglycerides), mmol/l:mmol/l. §Malondialdehyde adjusted for density. Statistically significant change from baseline to week 12: || p = 0.006, ¶ p<0.017, ** p = 0.026. Within-group differences at week 12 compared to baseline were evaluated by the Student's t-test for paired-samples, except for β-carotene which was analysed by the Wilcoxon signed ranks test.

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