A GP’s recommendation to follow a healthy diet, a plant-based diet at the same time as life-changing in one patient’s fortunes – could lead to a complete recovery from a mysterious and painful disease.
Livedoid vasculopathy is a rare, chronic condition in which severe and persistent ulcers form on the skin in the lower edges of the body.
Although it appears to be associated with cases of poor blood flow, the specific cause of the disease is unknown, and there is no commonly accepted treatment, although some patients reporting that they have been successfully treated through anticoagulation drugs and tension stockings.
For many patients, however, nothing works well enough. For a long time, this described the experience of a 63-year-old woman in New Zealand (warning: picture of her symptoms below), which began to show symptoms of the disease in 2005, although it was only several years later that liveoid vasculopathy was diagnosed.
“Her usual symptoms were the occasional tingling of red blotches on the lower legs and feet, swollen feet, which would go into severe nausea ranging from small (1- 6 mm) significantly (> 10 mm), ”doctors explain in a case report.
“She had an ulcer outbreak every few weeks to months since 2008.”
Illustration of female ulcers. (Smith et al., BMJ Case Reports, 2021)
He would only take out these incidents of clothing rubbing against skin or getting a minor injury. She wore tension socks to reduce ulcer formation and inflammation, but the sore sores would recur when she stopped wearing them.
In addition to her live vasculopathy condition, the patient’s health was OK, although she would for years take prescribed ibuprofen (and sometimes codeine) to reduce her pain.
When ulcers arise, the desperate patient said he wanted to ‘try nothing’. This led to a conversation with her doctor about the potential nutritional benefits of a whole plant-based food (WFPB) diet – including vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, herbs, and spices, but without meat, milk, eggs, fries. food, and highly processed foods.
At the time, the patient was thought to have capillaritis, a different dermatological condition that shows patches on the skin. The doctor’s advice was based on the idea that the dietary change, although not specifically proven as a treatment for capillaritis, could help with blood flow in the vasculature.
“The WFPB diet has been shown to improve cardiovascular health with very few side effects,” the doctors note in their report.
In this case, the diet reversal seemed to work wonders – or perhaps it was a real misunderstanding. Doctors can’t say for sure, but either, after promising the WFPB diet, the woman’s symptoms began to disappear.
At follow-up one month later, the patient’s lesion healing had progressed, with symptoms less of a concern than they had been years ago, the woman said.
A year after making the turn, it appeared to be in full swing, with no signs at all for the first time in about eight years, describing the feeling as “a new lease. on life ”.
While it is difficult to ascertain with certainty whether the WFPB directly caused the changes in liveoid vasculopathy – or simply correlated with the patient’s developments – there is at least some evidence that praise the diet rule that gave the petition.
As the patient grew, small weaknesses in adherence to the WFPB appeared to result in small outbreaks of ulcers, with more significant breakouts from the diet over the Christmas period – including fatty meats, cheese and oil – linked to worse recovery.
“I went down badly,” the patient explains. “Fish and chip sandwiches, pies, ham and cheese, and in February / March my legs healed those horrible wounds … I was in great pain again.”
Since that event – and the introduction of a course of antibiotics to help clear the ulcers – the patient has successfully committed a 100 percent WFPB diet, and doctors prescribe near her symptoms have been silent ever since.
“While liveoid vasculopathy can progress spontaneously, immediate recurrence of adverse symptoms has reduced adherence to the WFPB diet making a causal relationship plausible,” the researchers say. writing.
As for what may be behind this hypothetical case, it is difficult to say.
“The equipment is not completely clear,” the doctors explain. “We hypothesize that the dietary changes directly affect vascular endothelial health, which in itself affects a tendency toward a prothrombotic state.”
It is possible, the researchers think, that the diet could help restore the healthy function of vascular endothelial cells, thereby promoting anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory effects, while a reduction in animal products and associated saturated fat may have a positive effect on circulation which reduces inflammation.
Until we know more, the researchers say that with a whole food diet, a plant-based diet should at least be considered a possible treatment for cases of liveoid vasculopathy – but more research is definitely needed to find out what ‘s going on here.
The results are reported in BMJ Case Reports.