It really shouldn't come as a surprise that choosing to live a healthy
life style can provide benefits for people with arthritis. Exercising and
eating right can prevent many diseases such as cardiovascular disease and can
also cause reduces symptoms in others but what exactly is helpful for arthritis
patients and how exactly are they working to reduce joint damage and
inflammation in arthritis patients.
One of the most common things suggested to
patients with arthritis is to remain active, which often seems difficult
considering the thought of walking around the block with join pain seems
especially unpleasant. The truth is exercising has so many beneficial functions
that make it well worth their time. Exercising helps strengthen the muscles
around the joint and maintains bone strength which is helpful in preventing the
progression of the disease. Exercise also has the added effect of keeping one’s
weight under control. It is common knowledge that obesity can make the symptoms
of arthritis worse but it also increases the chances of getting it. According
to a study done by the CDC 1 in 5 Americans has been diagnosed with arthritis
but that number jumps to 2 in 3 among obese people. OA is the most common form
of arthritis and logically it makes sense that adding more weight will hasten
the breakdown of cartilage. For every one pound of fat that a person adds they
are adding 4 pounds of pressure on the joints so you can image that an obese
individual would be adding a lot of extra pressure on their joints.
While exercising and maintaining a healthy
weight can prevent and alleviate symptoms of OA smoking may trigger
autoimmunity in RA patients. The gene-environment interaction is what can cause
certain people to develop RA and it begins with the HLA, which plays a key role
in the immune system. The main genetic risk factor for rheumatoid
arthritis (RA) is the shared epitope (SE) of HLA-DR and in order to determine
the role of genetics one of the best methods used are twin studies. Studies
show that someone with an identical twin that has RA has roughly a 15 percent
change of also developing the disease indicating that environmental factors
play a huge role in the pathogenesis of RA. A study done in Sweden was
done to test the link between smoking and RA and the results showed a
significant correlation between smoking and the SE gene. In people who never
smoked but had the gene there was a 2.8% risk while in people who did smoke and
also had the gene there was 15.7% risk.
Overall lifestyle changes are an effective way of not only
treating the symptoms of arthritis but preventing it as well at many other
diseases. It seems like a lot of time and effort is put in to treating
different diseases once they have already started I believe that choosing
lifestyle choices that prevent the onset of diseases in the first place is
something that needs to be stressed a lot more. I understand that many people
can get arthritis and other diseases regardless of their lifestyle choices but
there are also many people who could have prevented or delayed it by making
better choices.
"Arthritis." Exercising with Arthritis: Improve Your Joint Pain and
Stiffness. N.p., n.d. Web.
09 Nov. 2014.
Dregar,
Debra. "Related Features." Smoking and Arthritis. Arthritis Foundation, n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.
Kane,
Andrea. "Related Features." Obesity and Arthritis. Arthritis Foundation, n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.
Padyukov,
Leonid. "Result Filters." National Center for
Biotechnology Information. U.S.
National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.
Indeed, it seems the lifestyle choices a person makes has a strong impact on the chances of acquiring OA, and if acquired, the relative severity of it. I particularly enjoyed your discussion of SE gene, smoking, and how it all relates to probability of presenting with OA. Logically, it would seem that the longer an individual smokes, the greater chance he/she has of acquiring OA. While this may seem true, the study appeared to just give one probability percentage for smokers, so I wonder if at some point of chronic smoking the odds of you acquiring OA level out.
ReplyDeleteHi Dan. I find it odd that osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis, yet it is considered a “non-inflammatory” disease, especially since pro-inflammatory cytokines have a role in the progression of the disease. I’ve always been told growing up that drinking milk is good for your bones and keeps them strong. It seems that drinking milk alone isn’t enough though. There are so many factors involved, including genes and physical activity that come into play. Is there a way that we can control the activity of our osteoclasts/osteoblasts to keep them in balance, or do we have to just hope for the best?
ReplyDeleteThis excerpt solidifies the main theme in this class that a healthy lifestyle is the ultimate way to alleviate or further prevent (depending on the ailment) health issues. I think that a lot of times when a doctor tells a person to exercise they immediately think of running and how they haven't ran in years and it seams rather unobtainable, but I think maybe if physicians would take the time to discuss yoga classes, or pilaties, or biking and swimming one of those interest might resonate better with a patient and would be a lot easier than trying to run a few miles with inflamed joints. While OA is more genetic than something like type II diabetes its great to know that exercise and lifestyle modifications doesn't leave an individual completely hopeless when diagnosed with OA or RA.
ReplyDeleteYour article posting about exercise led me to think about my Psio 303A Lecture class. There was a part in the lecture where my professor mentioned that when astronauts go to space, their bone density is dramatically lowered once they come back to Earth and this is because there is no resistance such as gravity up in space. So in the shuttles and wherever the astronauts are stationed, there are treadmills with these bungee cord attachments. That way, people can run on the treadmills and their bones are still able to have an adequate amount of bone density due to the impact that their body makes from the contact with the treadmill via the bungee cords.
ReplyDeleteAlso, my professor talked about how different forms of exercise affects the level of bone density you have. For example, you would expect a runner to have a higher level of bone density in comparison to a swimmer since the difference in impact is quite large. So I found your article interesting in the fact that while exercising may be uncomfortable and/or painful for those suffering from arthritis, I believe that exercise will eventually be able to alleviate some of the pain. Like with weight loss, you don't see immediate results. It takes time and I think that it works in the same way for arthritis.
Hey Dan,
ReplyDeleteLifestyle modifications seems to be the best treatment/prevention tactic when dealing with arthritis. I found it interesting that you discussed the shared epitope HLA-DR and how it plays a big role in the pathogensis of RA but not necessarily OA. This is due to the inflammatory cytokines released due to the immune response associated with RA but not OA.OA is more due to wear and tear on the joints, not an autoimmune response. Taking immunology concurrently with Inflammation and Disease makes all of these mechanistic differences make much more sense.