If Dr Darlington is right, then why did a similar trial, carried out three years earlier, produce such different results? This trial was conducted at Northwick Park Hospital in Middlesex, by Dr Michael Denman, Dr Bruce Mitchell and Dr Barbara Ansell. They studied 18 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, putting them on diets which excluded various foods for periods up to six months. In their opinion, the effects of eliminating foods cannot be assessed over shorter time intervals, because rheumatoid arthritis is such a variable disease. (Dr Darlington’s study overcame this problem by using a large group of patients and measuring their symptoms as a whole – in this way, the week-to-week variations in individual patients should cancel each other out.)

Only three of Dr Denman’s patients stuck the course for the full six months. Thirteen dropped out before two months, and the report does not say how long they were on the diet. None of the patients showed any improvement.

One problem with this study was that the diet did not eliminate wheat, which other studies of food intolerance have identified as one of the most common offending foods. The diet also allowed chicken, tea, coffee, and all kinds of vegetables – including commonly eaten ones such as potatoes that are often incriminated by elimination diets. This failure to exclude several suspect foods, combined with the small number of patients involved, could well explain the poor results.

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