The association between the Mediterranean diet and magnetic resonance parameters for knee osteoarthritis: data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative

Veronese N, La Tegola L, Crepaldi G, et al. · Clinical Rheumatology

Each SD higher Mediterranean-diet adherence was associated with slightly greater medial femoral cartilage volume (beta = 0.12) and thickness (beta = 0.13) on MRI — the only cartilage-specific human data for this diet, and it is associational.

Population

Osteoarthritis Initiative participants with knee MRI, cross-sectional analysis

Intervention

Adherence to Mediterranean diet (aMED score, observational)

Limitations

Cross-sectional; cannot distinguish diet effect from lifelong confounders; small betas of uncertain clinical meaning.