A team of researchers St. James Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, conducted a study that found the erectile dysfunction (ED) has a higher prevalence in men who have rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Previous studies have linked erectile dysfunction to vascular events, such as stroke and heart attacks, but this study indicates that there ...
In one of the most exciting discoveries, researchers at the Hanson Institute in Adelaide and the St. Vincent’s Institute in Melbourne believe they have made great progress on developing a new treatment which will ‘stop’ leukemia and inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.
The discovery relates to the way ...
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an auto-immune, inflammatory disease. People with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have higher levels of inflammatory proteins, called cytokines, and other cytokine related factors in their blood. According to a recent study, those markers are present as many as three years before any RA symptoms emerge.
Previous studies have ...
Researchers at Imperial College London (officially The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) have identified a protein that acts as a “master switch” for certain white blood cells to govern whether they increase or impede inflammation. The results of this study could lead to the development of new treatments ...
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory disease that causes the body’s immune system to go into overdrive, attacking the synovial lining of the joints. The result is inflammation and swelling of the joints and ultimately damage to the tissue and cartilage.
An uncommon, but well known complication of RA is cricoarytenoid arthritis (CA). Cricoarytenoid arthritis is essentially rheumatoid arthritis in the cricoarytenoid joint (CJ) between the cricoid and arytenoid cartilages in the back wall of the larynx. The CJ changes the tone of the voice by rotating as the vocal chords vibrate.
Involvement of the CJ in rheumatoid arthritis patients has been estimated as high as 70%, although those who actually experience symptoms represent a very small percentage. The symptoms include a sensation of something in the throat which can be aggravated when speaking or swallowing. Symptoms also include hoarseness or pain when speaking or coughing, and shortness of breath (dyspnoea).
Cricoarytenoid arthritis is most common in patients with rheumatic disease. There are other conditions, scleroderma, however, that have been shown to be the source of CA, including gout, lupus, upper respiratory infections, trauma, vocal cord tumors and Tietze’s syndrome
Diagnosing CA can be difficult. The most common diagnostic procedure is a fiber optic laryngoscopy. Neck radiography and computed tomography (CT) scans are also methods used to diagnose CA.
Treatments include resting the voice, direct heat, steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs. Steroids may be injected locally or in the form of a topical cream. If the breathing is affected it may be necessary to perform intubation or a tracheotomy, or tracheostomy.
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Originally posted 2008-10-01 18:14:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
A recent review of treatments for Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) found that the benefit of different therapies depended how widespread the disease was.
Psoriatic arthritis is the second most common cause of joint inflammation. It involves the skin and joints, but may also affect fingers and toes, eyes and the spine. The effect on the skin is seen as red, scaly patches on the skin. Erosion of the joints may occur within the first two years in nearly 50% of PsA patients. Furthermore, an erosion rate of 11% per year has been reported.
The researchers found that mild anti-inflammatories were only helpful if the disease was mild or localized. In cases were the joint involvement is more wide spread the more beneficial therapy is with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), such as methotrexate.
Further, in cases of extra-articular or spinal disease in which DMARDs have not shown significant benefit, biologic therapy (anti-Tumor Necrosis Factor or TNF) may be more effective.
This study suggests that optimal therapy with a combination of biologics and DMARDs may produce remission rates of up to 60%.
Findings of the review were published in the June 1st issue of Current Opinion in Rheumatology.
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Originally posted 2010-06-05 19:46:03. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
A novel new drug, based on the commonly used prednisone, has been recommended for European regulatory approval for treatment of morning stiffness resulting from rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The drug, sold under the name Lodotra™ is manufactured by the Swiss based Nitec Pharma AG.
RA stiffness and pain is caused by pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a), which peak during the night. Cytokines are molecules, such as hormones, that allow for communication between cells. Lodotra™ is a low dose prednisone tablet that interferes with the ability of IL-6 to cause inflammation.
Prednisone is a glucocorticoid, a class of drugs that are used to suppress inflammatory, autoimmune and allergic disorders by inhibiting the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines.
The novel part of the drug is that is in a class known as circadian cytokine modulator (CCM) which is taken at bedtime. The prednisone is released approximately 4 hours later and suppresses the night time pro-inflammatory cytokines. This results in reduction in early morning RA stiffness and pain.
Phase III studies on Lodotra™ were conducted on 288 patients in 26 European centers. The primary goal of the studies was the measure the improvement in morning stiffness. The results were published in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Nitec will next be seeking approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is conducting another round of Phase II trials in support of that. Since prednisone is also used for treatment of other conditions, such as asthma and polymyalgia rheumatica, Nitec will conduct further studies aimed at approval of Lodotra™ for those conditions.
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Originally posted 2009-01-08 13:05:50. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Frankincense is an aromatic resin that has been used for perfume and incense for thousands of years. The most aromatic is the Arabian Frankincense that is obtained from the Boswellia sacra trees in Oman and Yemen. Indian Frankincense, which is considered to be an inferior aromatic compared to the Arabian form, comes from the Boswellia seratta tree found in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Indian Frankincense has been used for thousands of years in India in the Indian system of traditional medicine known as “Ayurveda”. Recent research has also found that Indian Frankincense can reduce the symptoms of osteoarthritis.
The research which was led by Siba Raychaudhuri, a faculty member at the University of California at Davis, specifically tested an extract which they called AKBA (3-O-acetyl-11-keto-beta-boswellic acid) from the Boswellia serrata tree. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study focused on 70 patients that had been diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis.
The participants were randomly given one of two doses of an enriched Indian frankincense extract, under the brand name of 5-Loxin, or a placebo on a daily basis. The groups that had been taking the 5-Loxin indicated that they noticed improvement in their symptoms within 7 days. After 3 months, the participants that had been given the frankincense extract reported reductions in pain and stiffness, as well as improvements in their mobility compared to the control group.
According to Raychaudhuri, “The high incidence of adverse affects associated with currently available medications has created great interest in the search for an effective and safe alternative treatment… AKBA has anti-inflammatory properties, and we have shown that B. serrata enriched with AKBA can be an effective treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee… In this study, the compound was shown to have no major adverse effects in our osteoarthritis patients. It is safe for human consumption and even for long-term use”.
The team’s findings were published in the July 31st edition of the online journal Arthritis Research & Therapy.
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Originally posted 2008-09-05 21:45:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Anakinra is a biologic drug that is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and is given by daily injection. It is an interleukin-1 (IL-1) blocker. IL-1 is a naturally occurring cytokine, a signaling molecule like hormones, which cause symptoms of RA such as inflammation and cartilage degradation. IL-1 is one of the first cytokines ever described.
A review of the five most recent anakinra trials has shown that the drug reduced stiffness and pain in patients, as well as improved joint function, when compared to placebo. These five trials included 2,876 rheumatoid arthritis patients, about a quarter of which experienced improvements in their symptoms. However, the researchers did find that the improvements in symptoms were not as significant as with other biologics.
Additionally, patients using anakinra experienced more injection site reactions and had a significant rate of serious infections.
According to Dr. Marty Mertens of the University of Minnesota, “We would recommend caution with the use of anakinra for rheumatoid arthritis, especially with the only modest beneficial outcomes compared to other biologic medications studied for rheumatoid arthritis.”
One of the five trials studied the benefits of combining anakinra with another common RA biologic drug, etanercept. This study found no benefit, and in fact found a significant increase in the number of serious adverse events. “On the basis of these results, we recommend that doctors avoid combining biologic medications with anakinra when treating patients with rheumatoid arthritis,” said Mertens.
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Originally posted 2009-01-21 14:55:20. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Researchers in the UK have discovered that individuals with rheumatoid arthritis that have a “normal” body mass index (BMI) may actually have more fat in their bodies than those who do not have the disease. The team collected data from 174 RA patients, 43 osteoarthritis patients and 82 healthy patients. They found that the RA patients had a lower BMI than the healthy patients with the same body fat content. This enabled them to determine that the normal BMI range of 18.5 to 24.9 should be reduced by 2 for people with RA. This leads to a normal BMI of 23 for rheumatoid arthritis patients. Since higher body fat can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease people with RA may want to reconsider what their healthy weight should be.
Body mass index was invented between 1830 and 1850 by Adolphe Quetelet. It is the ratio of height to weight that is commonly used to classify people as underweight (less than 18.5), normal weight, overweight (25.0 – 29.9) or obese (over30). BMI is calculated by the following formula:
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Originally posted 2007-10-24 22:35:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Researchers have determined that a number of environmental factors, including trauma, are related to the onset of psoriatic arthritis in patients who have psoriasis.
Dr. Ian N. Bruce, of the University of Manchester, UK, and his team investigated 98 patients with psoriasis who had developed inflammatory arthritis. These were compared to 163 psoriasis patients that did not have arthritis. The participants were asked to complete a survey to assess the impacts of potential factors associated with the development of arthritis.
Among the factors that had a positive correlation to development of psoriatic arthritis were rubella vaccination (4.6 percent for psoriatic arthritis patients vs 0.7 percent for controls), trauma which required medical care (14.9 percent vs 7.9 percent), and recurring oral ulcers (25.3 percent vs 8.9 percent).
In addition, it was more likely that psoriatic arthritis patients had moved than were controls (30.3 percent vs. 18.2 percent, respectively). Psoriatic arthritis patients were also more likely to have had a broken bone that required admission to a hospital (50 percent versus 9 percent).
“Psoriatic arthritis can be considered as a ‘disease within a disease’,” Dr. Bruce’s team stated. Psoriatic arthritis is “inflammatory arthritis on a background of pre-existing or future development of psoriasis.”
“Usually arthritis post-dates, often by several years, the onset of psoriasis,” they noted. So for patients with psoriasis, it is would be helpful to know what factors increase their risk of developing this condition.
The team’s findings were published in the May issue of Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
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Originally posted 2008-05-19 21:50:19. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Frankincense is an aromatic resin that has been used for perfume and incense for thousands of years. The most aromatic is the 
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