Study Rheumatoid Arthritis

Bombardier C, Laine L, Reicin A et al (2000) Comparison of upper gastrointestinal toxicity of rofecoxib and naproxen in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. VIGOR Study Group. N Engl JMed 343 1520-1528... 

Rheumatoid Arthritis. Figure 1 The development of disability overtime in a group of RA patients studied prior to the early 1990s. FDI = functional disease index where 1 = moderate disability, 2 = more marked disability, 3 = severe disability and 4 = very severe disability (from Wolfe, Cathey (1991) J Rheumatol 18 1298). 

In the past number of years a number of studies have shown that in a variety of diseases there is a significant oxidation of Met residues to Met(O) in specific proteins that results in a loss of biological activity. These diseases include cataracts, rheumatoid arthritis, adult respiratory distress syndrome and emphysema. The most convincing evidence that Met(O) in proteins may be involved in the etiology of a pathological condition comes from studies with a-l-PI. It is well accepted that a-l-PI is inactivated upon oxidation of its Met residues. A decreased activity of a-l-PI in lung tissue that would result in an increased elastase activity has been associated with pulmonary emphysema. In patients who have a... 

CCR5 expression likely plays a role in T-cell recruitment and may be involved in the development of autoimmune diseases. There is a negative association between the CCR5A32 mutation and rheumatoid arthritis (Prahalad 2006). Furthermore, additional studies reviewed elsewhere suggest the involvement of CCR5 in multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and transplant rejection (Ribeiro and Horuk 2005). As such, it is likely that CCR5 antagonists developed for the treatment of HIV-1 infection can also be used for other diseases. 

Gutteridge, J.M.C. (1986). Antioxidant properties of the proteins caeruloplasmin, albumin and transferrin. A study of their activity in serum and synovial fluid fiom patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 869, 119-127. 

Hurst, N.P., Bell, A.L. and Nuki, G. (1986). Studies on the effect of D-pencillamine and sodium aurothiomalate therapy on superoxide anion production by monocytes from patients with rheumatoid arthritis evidence for in vivo stimulation of monocytes. Ann. Rheum. Dis. 45, 37-43. 

Silverstein FE, Faich G, Goldstein JL, et al. Gastrointestinal toxicity with celecoxib vs nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis The CLASS study A randomized, controlled trial. Celecoxib Long-term Arthritis Safety Study. JAMA 2000 284 1247-1255. 

Owing to the lag time between initiation and effect, capsaicin is not used for treatment of acute pain from injury. Instead, topical capsaicin is used for chronic pain from musculoskeletal and neuropathic disorders. Capsaicin preparations have been studied in the treatment of pain from diabetic neuropathy, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, postherpetic neuralgia, and other disorders.48 It is often used as an adjuvant to systemic analgesics in these chronic pain conditions. 

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects 1% of the US population, or 3 million people (1-3). Although women are 2.5 times more likely to get RA than men, some studies suggest the disease tends to be more severe in men. RA can affect people of all ages, but prevalence increases with age, approaching 5% in women over 55 years of age (1-3). RA is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by synovial inflammation and hyperplasia, neovascularization, and progressive destruction of cartilage and bone (1,4,5). The cause(s) of RA remains poorly... 

Chemokines and Chemokine Receptors Implicated in Rheumatoid Arthritis Human Studies... 

Anthony DD, Haqqi TM. Collagen-induced arthritis in mice an animal model to study the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis. Clin Exp Rheumatol 1999 17(2) 240-244. 

If you look in the medical literature, you will often see the term placebo defined as a non-specific treatment. What does it mean to say that a treatment is not specific It could mean that the treatment is effective for many different disorders, rather than for only one particular condition. In this sense, placebos are indeed non-specific. Besides depression, placebos have been shown to affect anxiety, pain, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, Parkinson s disease, angina, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, gastric function, sexual dysfunction and skin conditions. We know this from the thousands of studies in which placebos have been used as control conditions, against which the effects of medication have been evaluated, and from studies that were specifically designed to assess the placebo effect. 

The most widely studied therapeutic proteins produced in plants include monoclonal antibodies for passive immunotherapy and antigens for use as oral vaccines [40]. Antibodies against dental caries, rheumatoid arthritis, cholera, E. coli diarrhea, malaria, certain cancers, Norwalk virus, HIV, rhinovirus, influenza, hepatitis B virus and herpes simplex virus have been produced in transgenic plants. However, the anti-Streptococcus mutans secretory antibody for the prevention of dental caries is the only plant-derived antibody currently in Phase II clinical trials [40]. Until recently, most antibodies were expressed in tobacco, potato, alfalfa, soybean, rice and wheat [9], It has been estimated that for every 170 tons of harvested tobacco, 100 tons represents harvested leaves. A single hectare could thus yield 50 kg of secretory IgA [3, 41]. Furthermore, it has been estimated that the cost of antibody production in plants is half that in transgenic animals and 20 times lower than in mammalian cell cul-... 

At present, numerous free radical studies related to many pathologies have been carried out. The amount of these studies is really enormous and many of them are too far from the scope of this book. The main topics of this chapter will be confined to the mechanism of free radical formation and oxidative processes under pathophysiological conditions. We will consider the possible role of free radicals in cardiovascular disorders, cancer, anemias, inflammation, diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, and some other diseases. Furthermore, the possibilities of antioxidant and chelating therapies will be discussed. 

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