Effect of n-3 unsaturated fatty acid diet on C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate in the anti-inflammatory effect of rheumatoid arthritis: A meta-analysis

Abstract The work was carried out to explore whether the anti-inflammatory effect of n-3 unsaturated fatty acids on patients with rheumatoid arthritis is related to the levels of inflammatory markers CRP and ESR. Studies on the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with n-3 unsaturated fatty acid diet therapy and the outcome index containing CRP and/or ESR were included, and studies on the subjects suffering from other diseases affecting the outcome index were excluded. PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE and Google Scholar were systematically searched, and all studies published from the establishment of the library to 2024 were collected. The Cochrane Bias Risk Assessment tool was used to evaluate the quality of the included studies. Data analysis was performed using Stata 16.0 software. Seven studies were included in this analysis. A total of 399 subjects were studied to explore the effect of an n-3 unsaturated fatty acid diet on rheumatoid arthritis. The results showed that there was no significant difference in CRP (Hedges's g = 0.06, 95% CI: −0.48–0.37, P = 0.79) and ESR (Hedges's g = −0.14, 95% CI: −0.61–0.33, P = 0.55) between the intervention and control groups. The results of this study showed that the anti-inflammatory effect of unsaturated fatty acids on rheumatoid arthritis was not correlated with CRP and ESR levels. Due to the small number of included studies, more high-quality studies are still needed to confirm this.