Biological Agents for Relief of RA

Several people in my life (including my mother) have struggled with RA and have now found relief with so-called "biological agents." I was interested in finding out exactly what these "agents" are and how they work (immunologically speaking . . . . )

These treatments are currently marketed as Enbrel, Remicade, and Humira. They are each a slightly different type of TNF (tumor necrosis factor) blocker. As we all know, TNF is a pro-inflammatory cytokine. These medications (which must be given as an injection or as an intravenous infusion) work by completely blocking the action of TNF. This provides great relief to many RA sufferers. For some, it even stops the progression of rheumatoid arthritis.

This may seem to be a perfect treatment! But . . . A major downside to this type of treatment (an issue that we discussed on Monday) is that our immune systems manufacture TNF for a reason. By blocking TNF completely, the immune systems of the RA patients are compromised and the patients are therefore highly susceptible to infectious diseases. I suspect that research in this area will continue until a treatment is found that inhibits progression of RA without compromising the immune system in the process.

Vitamin D and Rheumatoid Arthritis

So I was looking around at studies done on treatments for arthritis and ran across this article on Vitamin D. The article is called "Vitamin D intake is inversely associated with rheumatoid arthritis: results from the Iowa Women's Health Study". The point of their study was to evaluate the association between vitamin D intake and incidences of rheumatoid arthritis. They picked women between 55 and 69 who previously had no history of rheumatoid arthritis. Their diet and vitamin D intake were evaluated using a questionnaire. The women were then followed up for 11 years to check possible cases of the disease. Their results showed that a greater intake of Vitamin D lead to a decreased risk of RA.

An issue with this study is that it was only done on women. We really have no data then on how Vitamin D intake affects men. It might also be interesting to see what affect Vitamin D has on people who already have rheumatoid arthritis.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14730601

Psoriatic Arthritis

Many articles about arthritis mention that there are hundreds of types of arthritis. The most common types that we have been discussing in class are rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, which are also the only 2 out of hundreds that I have heard of before. So I decided to learn about another type of arthritis.

I found an article containing information about a type of arthritis that occurs in people with psoriasis, called psoriatic arthritis. It is defined as "an inflammation of the joints that occurs in 10 to 30 percent of patients with psoriasis. It is not a type of psoriasis, but a symptom of psoriasis which is classified as a type of arthritis." The article I found stated that "Approximately 1 million people in the United States suffer from psoriatic arthritis. Most of them are adults between the ages of 30 to 50. However, psoriatic arthritis can affect juveniles and young people." I thought that it was very interesting that this type of arthritis is known to occur in children, because arthritis is usually said to occur in older people.

Psoriatic arthritis is suspected to be caused by genetics, but the cause is unknown. Therapy for this condition includes psoriasis treatment and progress that is being made in a type of medication made from human and animal proteins, called biologics.

http://www.omnimedicalsearch.com/conditions-diseases/psoriatic-arthritis.html

Arthritis and Heredity?

One of you asked whether arthritis is hereditary so I decided to try to find some information on it. Discovery Health posted an article titled “Arthritis and Heredity” in which it talked about the many forms of arthritis and which ones tend to run in families. The most common varities of arthritis are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis with arthritis affecting one in seven Americans. While the article did not talk very much about the heredity of arthritis too much it did provide a lot of information on how arthritis can develop and what types of people are most affected. In osteoarthritis may be due to inactivity caused by muscle weakness and obesity. This form of arthritis is more common in women and in older people. Rheumatoid arthritis involves the body’s immune system attacking its own tissues. Women are much more likely than men (2 times more) to have this form of arthritis. Unlike osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis tends to affect people of all ages and can travel throughout the body.

Here is the link to the site:

http://health.discovery.com/centers/arthritis/arthritis_qa/arthritis_hered.html