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Arthritis
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Definition of Arthritis
Arthritis is the inflammation of a joint, usually accompanied by pain, swelling, and stiffness, and resulting from infection, trauma, degenerative changes, metabolic disturbances, or other causes. It occurs in various forms, such as bacterial arthritis, osteoarthritis, or rheumatoid arthritis.
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Keeping Weight Off in Youth Pays Off in Old Age
Staying trim and healthy in younger years can lead to a healthier, more mobile old age, U.S. researchers say.
Researchers analyzed data on more than 2,800 people, ages 70 to 79, in the Pittsburgh and Memphis metropolitan areas.
Reporting in the International Journal of Obesity, they found that women and men who were obese at ages 25 and 50, as well as at the time of the study, scored significantly lower on physical performance tests than those who were normal weight at those ages.
The physical performance tests measured walking speed, balance, and the ability to rise from a chair. The researchers noted that poor physical performance in older adults is a predictor of future disability, nursing home admission and death.
Women who were overweight but not obese at ages 25, 50 and between 70 to 79 also had lower physical performance test scores than those with normal weights at those ages.
The study also found that men and women who were ov
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Clinical Trials Update: May 24, 2007
Obesity
Erectile Dysfunction
Osteoarthritis
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Large Jolts of Java Can Keep Gout at Bay
Four or more cups of coffee a day may help keep the gout away, suggests a study in the June issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.
Gout, the most common form of inflammatory arthritis in adult males, is caused by too much uric acid in the joints.
In this study, American and Canadian researchers tracked almost 46,000 men for 12 years. The men were ages 40 to 75 at the start of the study and had no history of gout.
The researchers found that men who drank six or more cups of coffee a day were 59 percent less likely to develop gout than those who never drank coffee, while the risk was 40 percent lower for men who drank four to five cups a day.
The findings were independent of all other risk factors for gout.
Decaffeinated coffee offered somewhat less protection against gout. Tea drinking and total caffeine consumption did not have an effect on the incidence of gout.
The findings suggest that components of coffee other than caffe
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Added Treatment Won't Speed Whiplash Recovery
Aggressive treatment of patients with whiplash doesn't speed their recovery, Canadian research suggests.
University of Toronto researchers examined the treatment received by almost 1,700 whiplash patients.
They found that increasing the intensity of care to more than two visits to a general practitioner, or adding chiropractic care to general practitioner care, was actually associated with slower recovery.
The results, published in the June issue of the journal Arthritis Care & Research, reaffirmed earlier findings by the same research team.
Whiplash is a common traffic crash-related injury that causes neck pain, headaches and other symptoms that can lead to significant disability and use of the health care system.
The study authors noted that practice guidelines recommend treatment shortly after a patients suffers whiplash and that effective care, if medically needed, can improve patient prognosis.
However, the researchers noted th
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Doctors Not Ready to Abandon Diabetes Drug
The news that the popular diabetes drug Avandia may increase the risk of heart attack is being met with concern, but not alarm, by health-care professionals.
"We think people should speak to their physician. We don't feel this is an emergency situation," said Dr. Sue Kirkman, vice president of clinical affairs for the American Diabetes Association. "The study was concerning, but the numbers were very, very small -- about an additional one per 1,000."
"People should definitely not panic, and they should talk to their doctors," added Dr. Mary Ann Banerji, professor of medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York City.
Rachel Villarreal, a health
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Blood Marker Could Point to Alzheimer's Risk
Scientists have zeroed in on blood biomarkers that could someday help doctors predict who's at risk for Alzheimer's disease. They might even help guide treatment, the U.S. researchers added.
These biomarkers, called cytokines, are all hallmarks of heightened inflammatory responses. Cytokines specific to Alzheimer's disease were found in greater numbers on white blood cells called mononuclear cells.
Higher concentrations of inflammatory markers in the blood have been linked to Alzheimer's disease before. But other conditions of old age, such as heart disease and arthritis, can also trigger inflammation, the researchers pointed out.
However, the newly discovered markers point specifically at Alzheimer's disease-linked inflammation in the brain, the scientists said.
That's important, because right now "there's no single blood test or neuroimaging study -- CT scan or MRI -- that can reliably predict whether somebody has Alzheimer's disease, m
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Rheumatoid Illness, Smoking Can Harm Heart's Aorta
Inflammatory rheumatic diseases and smoking are both associated with inflammation of the heart's aorta, the main artery carrying blood to the body, researchers report.
In turn, aortic inflammation can promote atherosclerosis ("hardening of the arteries" and the formation of aneurysms and increase risks for heart attack and death, according to a study in the June issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.
In the study, American and Norwegian researchers analyzed samples of aortic tissue from 66 coronary artery bypass patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease and a control group of 51 bypass patients without the condition.
Rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, lupus, ankylosing spondylitis, and polymyalgia were among the types of inflammatory rheumatic diseases afflicting the patients in the study.
The researchers found that patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease were more likely than patients in the control group to have i
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Health Tip: Why Can't I Sleep?
Plenty of sleep is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle. But most people have sleep problems at some point in their lives.
Here are common causes of insomnia, courtesy of the National Sleep Foundation:
Stress, depression or problems in work or personal life.
Drinking alcohol or caffeine late in the day.
Exercising too close to bedtime.
A distracting sleep environment -- one that's too bright, loud, or caused by sleeping near another person.
Physical conditions, such as arthritis, backache or pregnancy.
Certain medications, including steroids, decongestants, blood pressure drugs, asthma drugs and antidepressants.
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Discrimination Linked to Health Problems Among Minorities
Routine, even subtle, racial discrimination places significant mental stress on minorities that may provoke the development of chronic illness, new research suggests.
The finding is based on perceptions of discrimination and health histories elicited from Asian-Americans across the United States.
"Post-civil rights, most people think of discrimination as the commitment of a hate crime. But I think it's important to realize that discrimination occurs on a daily basis," said study lead author Gilbert C. Gee, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. "And what the research is showing is that everyday slights can turn into long-term health effects."
Reporting in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health, Gee and his colleagues called their work the first national exploration of a link between discrimination and health problems among Asian-Americans.
The study authors analyzed survey responses
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Study Links Inflammation to Heart Disease
Men with autoantibody rheumatic factor -- a marker of inflammation strongly associated with rheumatoid arthritis -- in their blood have a three-fold increased risk of heart disease, a new study says.
In men, the increased risk associated with rheumatoid factor is similar to that of well-known heart disease risk factors such as diabetes (2.5 times) and high blood pressure (4.4 times). Rheumatoid factor does not increase heart disease risk in women, the researchers said.
A simple blood test is used to measure rheumatoid factor.
The study authors said their findings add to growing evidence that inflammation is implicated in atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and suggest that auto-immune processes -- and rheumatoid factor in particular -- may play a role in the disease process itself.
They studied 567 men and 589 women born in Hertfordshire, Great Britain, between 1931 and 1937. The participants were
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Researchers ID Genes for Some Common Diseases
In the largest study to date of the genetics of diseases, researchers say they've substantially increased the number of genes believed to play a role in the development of common illnesses, ranging from bipolar disorder to diabetes.
Many of these genes were found in areas of the human genome not previously thought to be related to the diseases, the researchers said. While much was already known about genetic-based diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, little was known about the genetic components of more common diseases.
"These are like heart disease, schizophrenia, depression and arthritis, where we have known that genetics plays a role, but we haven't been able to pinpoint the genetic factors which are involved," said lead researcher Peter Donnelly, of the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford in England. "Our study is a new dawn to understanding genetic components of common diseases.
"For most common human disease, despite h
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New Medication Slows Rare Kidney Disease
Researchers say a drug called eprodisate can slow a rare but toxic buildup of amyloid protein that results in end-stage kidney disease.
While not a cure for the condition, called amyloid A amyloidosis, the drug can delay the need for kidney dialysis, according to the report in the June 7 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
"AA amyloidosis is a rare disease that occurs in some individuals who have long-standing inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis," explained lead author Dr. Laura M. Dember, an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University. "The diseases cause amyloid deposits to form in the kidney, which results in progressive deterioration of renal [kidney] function and ultimately progression to end-stage renal disease," she explained.
About 3,000 people a year in the United States develop AA amyloidosis.
To date, there has been no treatment for the disease other than trying to treat the underlying inflam
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FDA Seeks Strictest Warning for Diabetes Drugs
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has asked that two controversial type 2 diabetes drugs carry a "black box" warning on the potentially heightened risk of congestive heart failure in some patients.
In prepared testimony before a Congressional committee that was convened Wednesday following a published report on the cardiac dangers of Avandia, FDA Commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach said the agency had asked that Avandia, made by GlaxoSmithKline, and Actos, made by Takeda Pharmaceuticals, carry the more prominent warning because "despite existing warnings, these drugs were being prescribed to patients with significant heart failure."
According to von Eschenbach's testimony, the request for the warning -- the strictest one possible -- was issued to both companies May 23, two days after publication of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that found Avandia (rosiglitazone) increased the risk of heart attack by as much as 43 perce
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Vitamin D Cuts Cancer Risk: Study
Boosting your vitamin D intake can dramatically reduce your risk of breast and other cancers, a new study found.
The research adds to growing evidence that vitamin D can help protect against many forms of cancer as well as other diseases, Creighton University researchers said.
But an American Cancer Society spokeswoman urged caution in interpreting the findings, saying it was premature to recommend taking vitamins to reduce cancer risk.
Joan Lappe, a Creighton University professor of medicine and nursing and lead author of the study, said, "What we can say from our study is that 1,100 international units (IUs) a day of vitamin D definitely decreased the incidence of cancer."
That amount of the vitamin is nearly triple the recommended intake for the age group studied -- women who were 55 and older when the four-year study started.
Lappe's team followed 1,179 study participants who were all postmenopausal and lived in rural Nebraska. The
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