Rheumatoid Arthritis - Symptom relief and resources » treating different forms of arthritis

Coffee and Arthritis

cindy — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:55:41 +0000

The consumption of coffee has a dietary risk factor that has been demonstrated as being both harmful and beneficial in the development in many health problems. The 2007 Arthritis Rheum looks at whether coffee consumption really affects the risk of incident gout in men who are enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

In this study, it was shown that increase coffee consumption was associated with a decreased risk of incident gout. The highest consumption group was defined by drinking 6 cups or more per day. This group showed to have a significant a 56 percent reduced chance of incident gout compared to those who reported no coffee consumption.

In addition, subjects who said they only had 4 to 5 cups per day were also protective. 40 percent of these subjects had a reduction in gout compared to those no report of consuming regularly. The decaffeinated coffee demonstrated a more modest protective effect. It did however lack a clear dose dependent effected in compare to caffeinated coffee. After analyzing the tea intake or caffeine intake this did not demonstrated or created another benefit that would protect the caffeinated coffee intake.

The protected benefits of coffee intake did not vary in analyses stratified by subgroups. In the end, the increased caffeinated coffee that was consumed was associated with the dosage dependent protective effect against the development of gout in the male subjects. Although these results seem positive with gout, it does not mean you should try to drink more coffee, you should really consult your dietician and physician to see what is best in your case.

Lower Osteoarthritis Pain by Walking Without Shoes

cindy — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:00:34 +0000

When we walk there is a mechanical loading of the knee joints which causes Osteoarthritis (OA) to slowly progress. Customized footwear and orthotics have been developed to reduce the symptoms of OA. However, before Shakoor et al, it had not been systematically studied how wearing or not wearing footwear will effect dynamic knee loading. Shakoor et al taken patients with OA and examined them while they walked barefoot and compared their results with patients wearing normal footwear.

With the use of opto-electric cameras and multi-component force plates, these researchers studied how men and women with medical joint knee OA walked barefoot opposed to wearing normal shoes. The results were fascinating, because of the 65 subjects (51 female and 14 male) with the average age being 58 all of them showed a reduction in hip, knee OA, adduction moments, hip internal rotation, and hip external rotation were all decreased drastically while they were walking with out shoes.

At the end of this study, it was concluded that barefoot walking is associated with the overall decreased dynamic knee loading. This means that patients with OA should really consider walking with out shoes whenever they are able to. This will definitely help with their knee symptoms.

Without a doubt this is an amazing and interesting project, which will shine some light on further research. With out any doubt, there can also be more research done so that we can better understand the relationship between mechanical joint loading under regular physiological conditions and to those of developing and the progression of knee Osteoarthritis.