You’ve heard this before, but it bears repeating: One of the best things you can do for arthritis is to lose excess weight. Research shows that while diet and exercise combined are most effective for dropping pounds, dieting alone helps more than exercise alone. No one’s saying it’s easy, but evidence shows it pays off. Here’s how it can help.Continue readingHow Shedding Pounds Eases Arthritis Symptoms
A diagnosis ofinflammatory arthritiscan leave you wondering what you’re in for: Will you face along, bumpy road with your disease, or will it respond well to minimal treatment? Although there is no crystal ball, research into different forms of inflammatory arthritis is identifying factors that predict the likelihood of more or less severe disease.
Knowing these factors enables your doctor to target treatment, says David Pisetsky, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and immunology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. “With evidence of a worse prognosis, most rheumatologists will monitor patients more closely, try to get disease control more rapidly and adjust medications to achieve a [disease] activity score as low as possible,” he says. Plus, steps to taper treatment in those who achieve remission “would be more cautious and gradual,” he adds.
Here are prognostic factors your doctor may consider.Continue readingWhat Determines How Severe Your Arthritis May Become?
Until recently,spondyloarthritis(spon-di-low-ar-THRI-tis) didn’t receive much attention. It’s now generating more interest, in part because it’s diagnosed more often and there are better ways to treat it, says rheumatologist Philip Mease, MD, a professor at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle.