Mediterranean Style Eating and Inflammation in Lipedema
A new cross sectional study published in November 2025 of 60 women with Lipedema links a more inflammatory diet pattern to higher IL 6 and TNF alpha, and Mediterranean style eating to lower levels.
A paper published online on November 27, 2025 in the International Journal of Obesity looks at how the inflammatory potential of a person’s diet relates to blood markers of inflammation in women with lipedema.
We only have access to the abstract, so we cannot see the full methods, the exact food patterns behind the scores, or how the authors handled important details like medication use, activity level, or comorbidities. Still, the design and the results are interesting enough to learn from.
What the researchers actually did
They included 60 women with stage 2 to 3 lipedema and body mass index between 30 and 40. Participants completed three day dietary records. The researchers calculated a Dietary Inflammatory Index score and also measured adherence to a Mediterranean diet score using a screening tool.
They then measured two inflammatory biomarkers in blood, IL 6 and TNF alpha. They also collected pain ratings and quality of life scores.
A quick translation of the scoring tools into plain language
The Dietary Inflammatory Index is a research score that tries to estimate whether your overall dietary pattern is more likely to push inflammation up or down, based on published evidence linking many nutrients and foods to inflammatory markers.
A Mediterranean diet adherence screener is a short questionnaire that estimates how closely someone eats in a Mediterranean style pattern.
What they found
Higher Dietary Inflammatory Index scores were linked to higher IL 6 and TNF alpha levels. In the abstract, these relationships look fairly robust, including in regression models where the diet scores and body mass index were significant predictors of the biomarker levels.
Higher Mediterranean diet scores were linked to lower IL 6 and TNF alpha levels.
At the same time, the diet scores were not significantly linked to pain ratings or overall quality of life in this sample.
Why this matters for understanding lipedema mechanisms
Many people with lipedema are told, directly or indirectly, that inflammation is part of the picture. This paper supports that idea in a very specific way. It suggests that what you eat, at least as captured by these scoring systems, is connected to measurable systemic inflammation in blood.
