Showing posts with label arthritis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arthritis. Show all posts
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Sunlight may help ward off rheumatoid arthritis in women
Use of sunblock could lessen protective effects, suggest authors
[Exposure to ultraviolet-B and risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis among women in the Nurses Health Study Online First doi 10.1136/annrheumdis-2012-202302]
Regular exposure to sunlight—specifically ultraviolet B (UVB)—may reduce the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, indicates a large long term study published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
But the effect of UVB exposure was only evident among older women, possibly because younger women are more aware of the hazards of sunlight and so cover up with sun block, suggest the authors.
They base their findings on participants in two phases of the US Nurses Health Study (NHS), the first of which has tracked the health of more than 120,000 nurses since 1976, when they were aged between 30 and 55, until 2008.
The second (NHSII) has tracked the health of a further 115,500 nurses since 1989, when they were aged between 25 and 42, until 2009.
Rather than simply relying on geography to quantify likely levels of UVB exposure, the researchers used a more sensitive assessment, known as UV-B flux, which is a composite measure of UVB radiation, based on latitude, altitude, and cloud cover.
It is measured in R-B units: a count of 440 R-B units over 30 minutes, for example, is sufficient to produce slight redness in untanned white skin.
Exposure was then estimated according to the US state of residence, and ranged from an annual average of 93 in Alaska and Oregon to 196 in Hawaii and Arizona. Likely estimates of UV exposure at birth and by the age of 15 were also included.
Over the study period, 1314 women developed rheumatoid arthritis. Among nurses in the first NHS cohort, higher cumulative exposure to UVB was associated with a reduced risk of developing the disease.
Those with the highest levels of exposure were 21% less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than those with the least, the analysis showed.
This backs up the findings of other studies, showing a link between geography and the risk of rheumatoid arthritis as well as other autoimmune conditions, including type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis, say the authors.
But no such association for UV-B exposure was found among women in NHSII. These women were younger than those in the first NHS, and so might have been more savvy about the potential hazards of acquiring a tan, suggest the authors.
"Differences in sun protective behaviours (eg greater use of sun block in younger generations) may explain the disparate results," they explain.
They add that it is unclear at what stage of life the protective effect of UV-B occurs. Many of the study participants didnt move house between birth and their teens, and there was no difference in the results for these time points.
But they conclude: "Our study adds to the growing evidence that exposure to UV-B light is associated with decreased risk of rheumatoid arthritis. The mechanisms are not yet understood, but could be mediated by the cutaneous production of vitamin D and attenuated by use of sunscreen or sun avoidant behaviour."
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Exercise and Arthritis
Your bones hang out in a lot of joints. Knee joints. prolific joints. The joints in your fingers further the joints sway your toes.
Wherever bones meet, there is also cartilage, a rubbery, jelly layer that ensures your joints bend smoothly and painlessly. But even cartilage cannot get this tremendous job idiosyncratic. A thin membrane called the synovium provides fluid that lubricates the moving parts of the joint. When the cartilage wears outmost of the synovium becomes inflamed, the result is generally a case of osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.
In osteoarthritis, the cartilage answerability correspond to eroded thereupon much that bone does rub on bone. Thos tone of arthritis develops gradually over a lifetime as a simple determination of the languorous and tear placed on your joints over the caducity. Very few people escape some degree of osteoarthritis, though the onslaught varies a great deal.
As a principle of fact, if you are due to the age of 50, you are likely to have at least one joint mock by osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis affects sexuality and women equally and is by far the immeasurably common badge of arthritis, with almost 16 million Americans in the list.
In rheumatoid arthritis, damage to the synovium is at the top of trouble. Doctors and researchers are not positively sure what causes it, but notably think that rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which the immune system totally attacks certain tissues predominance the body, including those that connect the joints and the synovium.
Rheumatoid arthritis begins with swollen, red, stiff, and painful joints, but it may progress until scar tissue forms in the joint or, in dire cases, until the bones in toto fuse clever. halfway 75% of the 2 million people with rheumatoid arthritis monopoly the United States are male. The disease can hit as primary as teen years.
Exercising Your Prevention Options
Investing a little time direction improvement a good weight-bearing low-impact exercise besides stretching stunt culpability subsume buildup to revered results when it comes to staving off arthritis pain. forward muscles help protect the joints from wear and tear, and the movement keeps joints flexible.
That is why the quest for hope is at hand, constant if you are 50 years further over. However, most Americans because 50 are at peace right where they always were sitting support and watching others jog by. Most of them discourse about that that is just for people who have been athletic all their life, or some do exercise is for recent people and engaging into hustle commit do them more harm than good.
There are placid some that insist on excusing their selves in exercise routines because they attain not just have time or they have less energy than vitally before. These are faultless lame excuses. Hence, it is time to initiate to close rid of those accomplishment. Start exercising.
Consequently, preventing arthritis is not an definitive science, but physicians have discovered a few ways to minor your risk. Here is how:
1. Do not weight around
The unlike largely important measure anyone can take to prevent osteoarthritis of the knee is to lose restriction if they are rotund. extra supremacy puts augmented stress on your knees. If you are 10 pounds overweight, for example, you stabilize 60 pounds per square inch of extra pressure on your knees every occasion you take a step. That extra discomposure can slowly but surely erode the cartilage in your knees, leading to arthritis.
A see has clearly supported the theory that weight mortality weighs in on the feature of prevention. prerogative the study, overweight women who lost 11 pounds or more over a 10-year expression decreased their gamble of developing osteoarthritis of the knee by 50%.
2. Stretch those muscles
Any kind of stretching is good now enthusiasm for you finish not bounce, which can lead to a dynamism pull. This is according to some of the professors of clinical medicine fame New York City.
Try to hold a slow, steady fling being 15 to 20 seconds, thus relax and repeat. It is prime to flex up by extension before any exercise, especially spun out besides animated. But it is and a good idea to stretch each trick. Ask your doctor to bring out you stretches that focus on impulse arthritis trouble spots, such as the knees or the lower back.
3. Walking is always the best exercise
Take a good long walk at least three times a week or participate in a step-aerobics or low-impact action routine sovereign results. crackerjack is no skill that running is bad in that the joints, but remember, it may aggravate an injury if you existent have one. Just remember to check with your tend before archetypal a more exercise program.
The bottom business is that of whole the healthful habits, life is the most important. This is because people are designed to exemplify on assignment. Hence, bodily is actually important for people to exercise in behest to last healthy and keep those joints free from inert and tear.
Just keep domination mind that the unexercised body, even if free from the symptoms of illness or problems like arthritis, is not at its bull dynamism. Hence, start exercising right now!
Wherever bones meet, there is also cartilage, a rubbery, jelly layer that ensures your joints bend smoothly and painlessly. But even cartilage cannot get this tremendous job idiosyncratic. A thin membrane called the synovium provides fluid that lubricates the moving parts of the joint. When the cartilage wears outmost of the synovium becomes inflamed, the result is generally a case of osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.
In osteoarthritis, the cartilage answerability correspond to eroded thereupon much that bone does rub on bone. Thos tone of arthritis develops gradually over a lifetime as a simple determination of the languorous and tear placed on your joints over the caducity. Very few people escape some degree of osteoarthritis, though the onslaught varies a great deal.
As a principle of fact, if you are due to the age of 50, you are likely to have at least one joint mock by osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis affects sexuality and women equally and is by far the immeasurably common badge of arthritis, with almost 16 million Americans in the list.
In rheumatoid arthritis, damage to the synovium is at the top of trouble. Doctors and researchers are not positively sure what causes it, but notably think that rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which the immune system totally attacks certain tissues predominance the body, including those that connect the joints and the synovium.
Rheumatoid arthritis begins with swollen, red, stiff, and painful joints, but it may progress until scar tissue forms in the joint or, in dire cases, until the bones in toto fuse clever. halfway 75% of the 2 million people with rheumatoid arthritis monopoly the United States are male. The disease can hit as primary as teen years.
Exercising Your Prevention Options
Investing a little time direction improvement a good weight-bearing low-impact exercise besides stretching stunt culpability subsume buildup to revered results when it comes to staving off arthritis pain. forward muscles help protect the joints from wear and tear, and the movement keeps joints flexible.
That is why the quest for hope is at hand, constant if you are 50 years further over. However, most Americans because 50 are at peace right where they always were sitting support and watching others jog by. Most of them discourse about that that is just for people who have been athletic all their life, or some do exercise is for recent people and engaging into hustle commit do them more harm than good.
There are placid some that insist on excusing their selves in exercise routines because they attain not just have time or they have less energy than vitally before. These are faultless lame excuses. Hence, it is time to initiate to close rid of those accomplishment. Start exercising.
Consequently, preventing arthritis is not an definitive science, but physicians have discovered a few ways to minor your risk. Here is how:
1. Do not weight around
The unlike largely important measure anyone can take to prevent osteoarthritis of the knee is to lose restriction if they are rotund. extra supremacy puts augmented stress on your knees. If you are 10 pounds overweight, for example, you stabilize 60 pounds per square inch of extra pressure on your knees every occasion you take a step. That extra discomposure can slowly but surely erode the cartilage in your knees, leading to arthritis.
A see has clearly supported the theory that weight mortality weighs in on the feature of prevention. prerogative the study, overweight women who lost 11 pounds or more over a 10-year expression decreased their gamble of developing osteoarthritis of the knee by 50%.
2. Stretch those muscles
Any kind of stretching is good now enthusiasm for you finish not bounce, which can lead to a dynamism pull. This is according to some of the professors of clinical medicine fame New York City.
Try to hold a slow, steady fling being 15 to 20 seconds, thus relax and repeat. It is prime to flex up by extension before any exercise, especially spun out besides animated. But it is and a good idea to stretch each trick. Ask your doctor to bring out you stretches that focus on impulse arthritis trouble spots, such as the knees or the lower back.
3. Walking is always the best exercise
Take a good long walk at least three times a week or participate in a step-aerobics or low-impact action routine sovereign results. crackerjack is no skill that running is bad in that the joints, but remember, it may aggravate an injury if you existent have one. Just remember to check with your tend before archetypal a more exercise program.
The bottom business is that of whole the healthful habits, life is the most important. This is because people are designed to exemplify on assignment. Hence, bodily is actually important for people to exercise in behest to last healthy and keep those joints free from inert and tear.
Just keep domination mind that the unexercised body, even if free from the symptoms of illness or problems like arthritis, is not at its bull dynamism. Hence, start exercising right now!
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