Rheumatoid Arthritis

It's been a year since the journal Science published a paper linking a retrovirus called XMRV to chronic fatigue syndrome -- an illness nobody has been able to explain or treat very effectively, to the enormous frustration of people diagnosed with it. The paper was met with expressions of hope and joy from many in the chronic fatigue syndrome community, who saw it as potentially leading to diagnostic tests, treatments and even, maybe, a vaccine and...

A protein released when rheumatoid arthritis is present in the body may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The surprise finding in a mouse study may explain why people with rheumatoid arthritis have lower rates of developing Alzheimer's. Experts used to think that the drugs that people took for rheumatoid arthritis -- called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs -- also reduced the risk of Alzheimer's disease. That led to clinical trials to see if NSAIDs reduced the risk of Alzheimer's in a range of patients.

Moderate drinking may have some heart-healthy benefits, but its protective effects might not stop there. A new study suggests that alcohol might diminish the intensity of rheumatoid arthritis symptoms and could lessen the risk of getting the disease. The study, published online this week in the journal Rheumatology, examined drinking frequency in 873 white men and women with erosive, or inflammatory, RA, as well as 1,004 healthy people. In questionnaires, they were asked how many days over the last month they had had at least one alcoholic drink.

For more than a decade, Cheryl Clark has lived with the chronic pain that accompanies fibromyalgia. After years of suffering with severe flu-like aches and pains, she finally found some relief — but it didn't come from a pill or a shot. It came from exercise. Several times a week, Clark heads to the warm-water pool and the gym at Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation in Pomona. Her pain, she says, has gone from a six or seven on a 10-point scale scale down to a one or two. "It would kill me to walk from the car to the doctor's office.

Pregnant women need them for their babies' brains. Kids need them to learn. Adults get healthier hearts from them. The do-it-all nutrients known as omega-3 fatty acids appear to reduce pain in people with rheumatoid arthritis — and may help treat autism, bipolar disorder, depression, Alzheimer's disease, ADHD and prostate cancer. Even dogs and cats need omega-3s to stay healthy. So eat more fish. Take fish oil pills (or their vegetarian counterparts). Start buying fortified foods.

THOUSAND OAKS -- Amgen Inc. said today the Food and Drug Administration wants more information about its osteoporosis treatment Prolia before granting marketing approval. It delays a drug seen as a potential blockbuster for the company. In a letter, the FDA said it wants to know how Amgen will monitor patients who use Prolia, and wants the company to develop a strategy to evaluate the risks of the drug, Amgen said. In premarket trading, Amgen shares fell $1.38, or 2.3 percent, to $59.94.

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.

This isn't an easy subject for me, but it's one many will relate to. I have rheumatoid arthritis. Thanks to the wonders of medical science and a doctor who worked with me for five years to get my "Molotov cocktail" just right, I am, for the most part, in remission. I'm hoping by sharing the beginning and middle of my journey (I won't say end, because this disease is not curable) I will provide others with some encouragement. Before RA, I was being treated for chronic sciatic nerve and joint pain -- I was given more than 45 cortisone injections and physical therapy.

The Food and Drug Administration ordered stronger warnings Thursday on four medications widely used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other serious illnesses, saying they can raise the risk of possibly fatal fungal infections. The drugs -- Enbrel, Remicade, Humira and Cimzia -- work by suppressing the immune system to keep it from attacking the body. For patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the treatment provides relief from swollen and painful joints, but it's "a double-edged sword," said the FDA's Dr. Jeffrey Siegel.

Those BIG 10-pound newborns that look like future Hall of Famers may be at an increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis. In a study of 84,077 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study from 1976 to 1992, Dr. Lisa Mandl at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York and colleagues found that people who weighed more than 10 pounds at birth were twice as likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis as those who were of normal weight -- 7.1 to 8.5 pounds -- at birth.