Acupuncture and Turmeric could be viable treatment options for arthritis sufferers

People who suffer from osteoarthritis (OA) as a rule find it has to varying degrees an impact on their mobility and quality of life.

Current treatments involve anti-inflammatory drugs but these, though effective in dealing with the pain, carry a number of unwanted side effects especially when taken over long periods.

Now two new studies are saying that there are possibly other options.

A team of German scientists have conducted a study into the benefit of acupuncture with patients suffering from chronic pain due to OA of the knee or the hip and they have found that a combination of acupuncture and conventional medicine can improve the patients quality of life.

American researchers on the other hand have found that an extract of turmeric may help prevent or curb both acute and chronic rheumatoid arthritis.

According to the Arthritis Foundation, as many as one in five Americans (46 million) suffers from one of the more than 100 various joint diseases that constitute arthritis, and another 23 million have chronic joint pain.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and happens when bone cartilage progressively degenerates.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an immunological disorder where the lining of the joints become painfully inflammed.

For the acupuncture study Claudia M. Witt of the University Medical Center in Berlin, Germany, and her team examined the use of acupuncture as an extension of routine medical care and whether the effects of treatment last after therapy is discontinued.

The team involved a total of 3,553 patients divided into three groups: 322 immediately received up to 15 sessions of acupuncture in the initial three month period; 310 controls received no acupuncture for the first three months; and 2,921 received the same treatment as the acupuncture group.

Each patient was followed for a total of six months and the control group received acupuncture during the last three months of their study period.

The authors found that the patients who were treated with acupuncture in addition to routine care showed significant improvements in symptoms and quality of life compared with patients who received routine care alone.

They also found that the patients in the control group who received acupuncture only after three months showed similar improvements at six months.

The acupuncture was delivered by physicians who had received a minimum of 140 hours of certified training.

Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine, which emphasizes the body's own healing ability and aims for long-term healing and is considered by advocates to be an undervalued treatment option for chronic pain and many other conditions.

Witt and her team say the study has advanced the understanding of acupuncture and adds to the accumulated evidence supporting its efficacy.

Dr. Janet L. Funk, the lead author of the turmeric study and an assistant professor of physiological sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson isolated a turmeric extract based largely on curcuminoids, a compound they believe to be most protective against arthritic inflammation.

Funk's team dosed female rats both before and after the onset of rheumatoid arthritis with the extract and then monitored the changes in the rodents' bone density and integrity

They say the turmeric extract appeared to block inflammatory pathways associated with rheumatoid arthritis in rats at a particularly early point in the development of the disease and the beneficial impact was seen within three days after arthritis set in, but not when it was given eight days after disease onset.

Laboratory tests revealed that the turmeric stops a particular protein from launching an inflammatory "chain reaction" linked to swelling and pain.

Funk says however, that the results are preliminary, and the extract needs to be tested in people.

Both studies appear in the November 2006 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.