Arthritis

The products: Humans have long believed in an almost magical connection between strong flavors and good health. The burn from the hot pepper? It must be energizing the body. The pungent tang of a raw oyster? It must be energizing a very particular part of the body. And the zingy sweetness of an Indian curry? For centuries, people in India have believed that the spice turmeric can ease digestive distress and arthritis. In recent years, scientists have taken an intense interest in curcumin, a bright-yellow compound in turmeric that seems to fight inflammation -- in test tubes and lab rodents, at least.

Even as Republican presidential candidates vow to dismantle what they call "Obamacare" -- the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 -- some of the law's key provisions are making their way onto the medical landscape. The latest step toward implementing the law came Thursday, as the Food and Drug Administration issued draft rules that will open the U.S. marketplace to "biosimilars" -- essentially generic versions of medications made with living, often bioengineered, organisms.

Seeing the movements of a healthy hand mirroring one's own movements plays a welcome trick on the brains of arthritis sufferers, a new study shows: It reduces the perception of pain. The observation, reported this week at the Society for Neuroscience's annual conference , could offer a safe, inexpensive means of dampening chronic pain by enlisting the brain's power of suggestion. The small  arthritis study, which tested just eight subjects, comes from the lab of UC San Diego neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran -- who first used mirror-based trickery to treat phantom-limb pain in patients who have had an amputation.

The sunny fact that Americans are living longer, more productive lives has a dark side: More of us than ever live with chronic illnesses that are not only a drag on sufferers' time and energy, but on the nation's pocketbook. The Institute of Medicine on Tuesday put a dollar figure on the cost of caring for chronic illness in the United States--$1.5 trillion yearly, fully three-fourths of annual healthcare spending. A panel of experts called on policymakers to do more to prevent and track the big nine chronic diseases that most drain the nation's wallet.

My husband and I are in our 50s. We are having much pain from arthritis. His is in his knees. I have had my thumb joint removed due to osteoarthritis, and now I am told I need hip-replacement surgery. Glucosamine and chondroitin seemed to help for a while, but now we are back to limping. What can you tell us about the benefits and risks of these supplements? Are there any other options? A large government-sponsored study of glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis of the knee determined that these supplements were no better than a placebo for mild to moderate arthritis (Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases online, June 4)

* The term "arthritis" includes more than 100 rheumatic diseases and musculoskeletal conditions. * Nearly 40 million Americans have arthritis or a related disease. * Arthritis affects 285,000 children in the United States. * Arthritis costs the U.S. economy $64.8 billion a year in medical care and lost wages. * Nearly two-thirds of all people with arthritis are women. * Osteoarthritis is the most prevalent form of arthritis, affecting 15.8 million Americans.

The number and similarity of a particular gene linked to rheumatoid arthritis helps determine how severely the disease will afflict a person, according to a study published today. Those at the highest risk for the most severe form of rheumatoid arthritis have two identical copies of the gene, HLA-DRB1, the Mayo Clinic study showed. The risk goes down for people with two non-identical HLA-DRB1 genes or just one of the genes, it said.

For 20 years Wayne Gretzky occupied an honored seat among the gods of professional sport, but the 38-year-old Canadian hockey legend seemed all too human Tuesday as he faced a new battle, this time with arthritis. Gretzky, who shattered almost every scoring record during a fabled career in the National Hockey League, retired from professional hockey in April to the regret of millions of admirers.

Arthritis and other chronic joint problems are far more widespread than estimated five years ago, affecting one-third of U.S. adults, about 69.9 million people, the government said Thursday in the first comprehensive survey of the disease. Health officials said the numbers -- and related health-care costs -- are expected to continue to rise as the baby boom generation reaches old age. The survey shocked even advocates for arthritis sufferers.

Arthritis sufferers are among the top consumers of herbs, vitamins and other over-the-counter natural remedies--and little wonder. Hundreds of such products claim to have an effect on "pain and inflammation." Even many traditional medical doctors sympathize with patients who battle chronic pain and wish to avoid or curtail the use of powerful prescription drugs. The effectiveness of many supplements, however, is not supported by scientific studies.

Regular exercise can be beneficial to people with rheumatoid arthritis, but a study finds that two out of five people with the disease may not be active at all. The study, released Thursday in the journal Arthritis Care & Research , looked at how much physical activity was done over seven days by 176 adults age 23 to 86 who had rheumatoid arthritis. Instead of having the study participants report their activity, researchers had them wear accelerometers for a week, small devices that are fairly good measurements of physical activity and give a fuller picture of daily movement compared to pedometers.

You've heard of the fat suit and the pregnancy suit; now meet AGNES — the old person suit. AGNES stands for Age Gain Now Empathy System and was designed by researchers at MIT's AgeLab to emulate what it feels like to be 75 years old with arthritis and diabetes. "The business of old age demands new tools," said Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab. "While focus groups and observations and surveys can help you understand what the older consumer needs and wants, young marketers never get that 'Ah ha!

Thanks to the conveniences of the wired world, Peter Winkler was able to write a book and find an agent and a publisher without ever having to leave his North Hollywood home. Winkler raced to produce the first biography of Dennis Hopper to come out after the actor died in May 2010. It was only when the book was on the shelves that his agent learned how he had done it. "My God, I had no idea," said Robert Diforio of Weston, Conn., who sold "Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel" to a small East Coast publisher, Barricade Books.

Seeing the movements of a healthy hand mirroring one's own movements plays a welcome trick on the brains of arthritis sufferers, a new study shows: It reduces the perception of pain. The observation, reported this week at the Society for Neuroscience's annual conference , could offer a safe, inexpensive means of dampening chronic pain by enlisting the brain's power of suggestion. The small  arthritis study, which tested just eight subjects, comes from the lab of UC San Diego neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran -- who first used mirror-based trickery to treat phantom-limb pain in patients who have had an amputation.

I can't think of a better way to begin this column than to let a fellow pundit get things going. So I'll turn things over to Allene Arthur, who's been writing columns for the Palm Springs Desert Sun for 32 years: "Fiftieth high school class reunions are a dime a dozen," Arthur wrote in a note to me recently. "Sixtieth reunions are rare enough to get our attention. But a 70th class reunion is an uncommon big deal. The Manual Arts High School class of Summer, 1941, will hold its 70th on October 3....

Exercise relieved symptoms of arthritis in obese mice, even though they lost no weight from their efforts, a study finds. Excessive weight has long been considered one of the culprits of osteoarthritis, since it puts additional strain on joints. While exercise has been shown in some studies to ease arthritis symptoms, others have found that for overweight and obese people, a fitness regimen can exacerbate the condition. This study, published online Tuesday in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism , found that although weight may heighten the risk of osteoarthritis, regular exercise could diminish joint problems by slowing its progression.

Japanese researchers have demonstrated that a human virus called HTLV-1 can cause rheumatoid arthritis in mice. Experts said the discovery provides strong proof that viruses can cause arthritis. HTLV-1 is a so-called retrovirus, closely related to the AIDS virus, that is capable of inserting its own genetic information into the genes of its host during an infection. It causes leukemia and at least two rare degenerative nerve disorders.

Johnson & Johnson won U.S. approval of a rheumatoid arthritis drug designed to be injected less often than its top-selling product, Remicade. The Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced its decision on the medicine, golimumab. The drug, to be co-marketed outside the U.S. by Schering-Plough Corp., will compete with Amgen Inc.'s Enbrel and Abbott Laboratories' Humira. Remicade produced more than $5 billion in revenue last year, according to the data research firm IMS Health Inc.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder that progresses from joint pain to joint destruction and disfigurement. But that progression can be dramatically slowed by a class of medications called disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs , or DMARDs for short. If started early, these drugs can preserve patients’ joints for years, allowing them to continue working and improving their overall quality of life. So why aren’t all RA patients taking them? That’s a question that a group of researchers from Stanford, Brown, Harvard and UC San Francisco set out to answer.

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, as the name suggests, is rare and not life-threatening. But the swollen joints and inflammation caused by this disease can be devastating for very young children. Maggie Root was just 2 when a swollen toe signaled something was wrong. The Virginia girl says in this Newport News Daily Press story : "My fingers started hurting, and my neck. My fingers were all red," she says. The disease affects about 300,000 children in the United States, and its cause remains unknown.