Posts Tagged ‘osteoarthritis’

People suffering from asthma and osteoarthritis can stop taking steroids within a period of 18 months of bariatric surgery, as per a new study presented at the 25th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS).

It is also worth noting here that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has already reported this form of surgery as a safe treatment option than ever.

From Medicalnewstoday.com:

Researchers from The Western Pennsylvania Hospital, a teaching hospital of Temple University School of Medicine in Pittsburgh, studied 49 morbidly obese patients who were taking steroids and other immunosuppressive medications to treat chronic inflammatory diseases including asthma and osteoarthritis, and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and myasthenia gravis. These patients, with an average body mass index (BMI) of 47, had bariatric surgery sometime between 1999and 2008.

Eighteen months after bariatric surgery more than half of the patients had so much improvement in their inflammatory or autoimmune disease, they were able to stop taking or significantly reduce the use of oral steroids or immunosuppressive medications, powerful treatments that manage disease but also produce numerous adverse effects, particularly after prolonged use. Patients had an average excess weight loss of 65.2 percent and other obesity-related diseases including type 2 diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea were resolved or improved in more than 80 percent of patients. There were 8 early complications and no deaths.

Daniel J. Gagné, MD, the study’s lead author and Director of Bariatric Surgery and Laparoscopic and Minimally Invasive Surgery at The Western Pennsylvania Hospital, said that people with compromised immune systems or taking steroids for chronic inflammatory diseases could benefit from bariatric surgery besides experiencing significant improvements or elimination of many diseases.

Concentrations of testosterone in men and estrogen in women, the sex hormone, could have a beneficial effect on regenerative potential of cartilage tissue according to researchers from Germany.

The study suggested that hormone replacement in the joint fluid of men and women may prove beneficial when it comes to treating late stages of human osteoarthritis (OA) via damaged tissue regeneration.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Nicolai Miosge, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues from the August University in Goettingen, Germany examined the regenerative potential of chondrogenic progenitor cells (CPCs) that are present in arthritic tissue during the late stages of OA. The research team speculated that these CPCs might be influenced by sex steroids, and therefore hormone replacement therapy directed to the joint fluid could be beneficial in restoring damaged tissue. Tissue samples from 372 patients who underwent total knee replacement were analyzed. The mean age was 71 years of age for men and 72 years for women, with women representing 64.25% of participants.

Estrogens are known to influence bone metabolism and researchers found that 17β-estradiol (E2), which increases calcium deposition in both sexes, was present in the joint fluid of study participants. CPCs positive for estrogen receptors (ERα and ERβ) as well as androgen receptors were present in the OA tissue as well. Both estrogen and testosterone influenced the expression of all 3 receptor genes and the CPCs by regulating gene expression.

Details of this evidence-based study appeared in an issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology.

According to scientists, the commonly-used practice of injecting gold into knee for slowing down progression of arthritis and reducing the associated pain may not work equally effective for one and all. It was noted that all patients affected with osteoarthritis may not notice the same benefits.

Nearly 80 million people suffer from this condition and a further 350,000 people suffer from rheumatoid arthritis that is an autoimmune joint disease where the joints in the body become inflamed, according to the Arthritis Research Campaign.

From Bio-Medicine.Org:

Treatments include painkillers, steroids and joint replacement.

Gold has already been used in the past for rheumatoid arthritis and for other rheumatic diseases such as psoriatic arthritis, which also causes swelling and pain in and around the joints.

As many as half those patients with rheumatoid arthritis, especially those in the early stages of the condition, can benefit from gold, claim researchers at the University of Washington.

In some, it relieves joint pain and stiffness, reduces swelling and bone damage, and lowers the chance of joint deformity and disability.

It was concluded during the study that injecting gold into the knees cannot be termed as the same-treatment-for-all remedy since approximately 20 to 30 percent of the affected patients do not experience benefits from gold treatment.

The German biotech-company, Orthogen AG, has provided an substitute by offering the results of a new osteoarthritis trial with Orthokine.

It was remarked by Orthogen CEO Prof. MD. Peter Wehling in Dusseldorf/North-Rhine-Westfalia, that the Orthokine-therapy is safe as well as effective. It was also remarked that clinical results have suggested that the therapy results are far superior to those achieved using standard hyaluronic acid injection therapy and placebo.

From News-Medical.Net:

Ten to 20 percent of the population of western countries suffers from joint and spinal disorders. The therapies for these disorders are most expensive after circulatory and digestive diseases with a high market potential. According to official government statistics, orthopedic disorders cost EUR25 billion annually in Germany alone and approximately one-third of this amount is accounted by osteoarthritis. For many years now, musculoskeletal disorders have been the number one cause of work disability and the consequent economic loss in Germany.

“The problem with conventional OA-therapies such as painkillers, steroids and hyaluronic acid is that they act on the symptoms but leave the underlying causes of the disease untouched,” said Wehling, specialized in the role of cytokines in pain inhibition and tissue regeneration. In contrast Orthokine acts on the causal mechanism of arthritis and prevents further cartilage degeneration in the joints. “Orthokine could potentially become the new standard arthritis therapy,” Wehling said. Pharmacology experts also regard biologicals as the medications of the future.

The trial included 400 Patients and was realized in conformity with the international standards from Heinrich-Heine-University (Dusseldorf).

According to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver, a presently recommended osteoporosis drug can prove to be effective for preventing cartilage loss arising due to osteoarthritis after a joint injury.

Currently followed drugs such as steroids or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (e.g. Advil, Aleve) may be useful for reducing pain but not effective for addressing loss of cartilage because of osteoarthritis, which is assumed to affect more than 50 million people by 2020 in the United States alone.

From News-Medical.Net:

Parathyroid hormone (PTH), known as teriparatide in drug form, has emerged as a major player in the maintenance and healing of bone, and the race is on to design new applications for it. Past studies have established that PTH prevents chondrocytes from undergoing maturation, and stimulates their proliferation, preserving larger pools of cartilage cells in the joint. Signaling molecules like PTH have their effect in the body by interacting with specifically shaped proteins on the cell surfaces called receptors. PTH docks into its receptors, like a ship coming into port, which changes the shape of the dock such that biochemical signals are sent.

The authors of the current study observed that chondrocytes within injured and degenerating cartilage have more PTH type 1 receptors on their surfaces. This makes them especially sensitive to the PTH signal that prevents harmful chondrocyte maturation into bone in the joint cartilage. Thus, PTH therapy should increase the cartilage supply exactly where cartilage loss is causing disease.

Randy Rosier, M.D., Ph.D., professor within the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at the University ofRochester Medical Center , said that physicians are left with no answer when it comes to restoration of the cartilage in patients suffering from osteoarthritis.

arathyroid hormone (PTH), which is known as teriparatide in drug form, can prove to be an effective option for inhibiting cartilage loss due to osteoarthritis following joint injury. The hormone was also found to be effective for regenerating a part of cartilage lost due to osteoarthritis.

This finding was revealed by an early study presented September 12 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver.

The presently recommended drugs such as steroids or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (e.g. Advil, Aleve) may address pain but fail to address loss of cartilage because of osteoarthritis, which is believed to affect more than 50 million Americans by 2020.

From Sciencedaily.com:

“Right now physicians have no way to bring back cartilage in patients who have lost it to osteoarthritis,” said Randy Rosier, M.D., Ph.D., professor within the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “Our current results, at least in mice, show that we can inhibit cartilage degeneration and improve the volume of cartilage in diseased joints. It’s remarkable enough that this compound delays the loss of cartilage, but these results show it also may be able to restore, at least to some extent, cartilage in already degraded joint surfaces.”

Researchers examined the impact of a daily dose of Forteo®/teriparatide, manufactured by Eli Lilly, and a generic version of teriparatide made by Sigma on the progress of OA following injury in study mice.

Experiments established a five-fold increase in PTH type 1 receptor expression in the articular cartilage of mice with injury-related osteoarthritis when compared to healthy cartilage. Injury triggers genetic mechanisms in an attempt to begin repairs, a repair response that may be responsible for the increase in PTH receptor in the joint. This in turn makes damaged cartilage particularly responsive to PTH.

This study was co-led by Erik Sampson, Todd O’Brien, Di Chen, Susan Bukata, J. Edward Puzas, Regis O’Keefe and Michael Zuscik within the Department of Orthopaedics and by Hani Awad in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and funded by the National Institutes of Health.

According to an early study presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver, an existing osteoporosis drug can be effective for preventing loss of cartilage due to osteoarthritis after a joint injury.

It is noteworthy to remember that the currently used and available drugs such as steroids or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (e.g. Advil, Aleve) are good enough only for reducing the level of pain but do not address cartilage loss behind osteoarthritis that is believed to afflict more than 50 million Americans by 2020.

From News-Medical.Net:

Parathyroid hormone (PTH), known as teriparatide in drug form, has emerged as a major player in the maintenance and healing of bone, and the race is on to design new applications for it. Past studies have established that PTH prevents chondrocytes from undergoing maturation, and stimulates their proliferation, preserving larger pools of cartilage cells in the joint. Signaling molecules like PTH have their effect in the body by interacting with specifically shaped proteins on the cell surfaces called receptors. PTH docks into its receptors, like a ship coming into port, which changes the shape of the dock such that biochemical signals are sent.

The authors of the current study observed that chondrocytes within injured and degenerating cartilage have more PTH type 1 receptors on their surfaces. This makes them especially sensitive to the PTH signal that prevents harmful chondrocyte maturation into bone in the joint cartilage. Thus, PTH therapy should increase the cartilage supply exactly where cartilage loss is causing disease.

It was remarked by Randy Rosier, M.D., Ph.D., professor within the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at the University of Rochester Medical Center, that physicians are left clueless for brining back cartilage in patients who have lost the battle to osteoarthritis and this study’s results can help them treat patients with osteoarthritis in an effective manner.

Patients with osteoarthritis (OA) often suffer from pain, joint inflammation and limitation of movements. Usually, they are prescribed steroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to relieve pain and inflammation.

However, these drugs do not address another major concern in OA, the loss of cartilage after injury to the joint.

In osteoarthritis, cartilage often become damage due to mechanical stresses placed in the joint. It is usually prevalent as a person age. This continuous deterioration leads to the condition.

During high impact activities, the cartilage, which acts as a sponge and a shock-absorbing layer, keeps our bones from grinding against each other.

However, as we age, chondrocytes, the cartilage-forming cells produce less re-generation.

Last September 12; at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver, a study was presented which showed to prevent cartilage loss in OA. It also showed remarkable results in helping re-generate cartilage in diseased joints.

The drug is known as teriparatide, a parathyroid hormone in drug form. Studies conducted in mice showed that 27% more cartilage was regenerated after 12 weeks of teriparatide treatment than those who received normal saline solution. Consequently, administration of the drug in later OA cases revealed a 35% increase in cartilage regeneration than in those who received saline solution.

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2009) — An existing osteoporosis drug is the first ever found to prevent cartilage loss from osteoarthritis following injury to a joint, and may also regenerate some cartilage that has been lost to osteoarthritis, according to an early study presented September 12 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver. While the study was in mice, the model closely mimics human osteoarthritis that develops following knee injuries, according to the study authors.