28 March 2010

The article "What A Pain," from The Boston Globe, referenced the Arthritis Foundation a few times, so I decided to learn more about it. I went to the website and found that it was actually very helpful and informative about arthritis. The website has information about many types of arthritis, events to raise awareness, and current research.

One of the topics that is currently being researched that I found interesting was in an article called, "Clarifying the Role of Fat in Osteoarthritis." It mentions how obesity is thought to increase the risk of arthritis due to increased weight and force on joints. The article goes on to say, "excess fat may take a toll in another way, too. Fat is a metabolically active tissue that secretes cytokines, or signaling molecules, that can trigger inflammation. An increase in cytokines may help to explain why, for example, obesity increases the risk not only for osteoarthritis in the knees, which would be directly impacted by the increased load, but also in the wrist, which is not a weight-bearing joint."

Research is currently being done on this topic. Here is the website to the Arthritis Foundation webpage
http://www.arthritis.org/
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2 comments:

  1. LaceyGMarch 29, 2010 at 2:40 PM

    I was wondering if you knew if arthritis is hereditary? I know my grandmother has it in her hands pretty serverely; I was wondering how likely I am to get it?

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  2. JessamynNA495April 3, 2010 at 10:16 PM

    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

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