This review by C.Turesson and E.L Matteson from malmo university in Sweden takes a look into the link between rheumatic disorders and an increase in cardiovascular disease. The full article can be found via pubmed 17278937. The article concludes that regular exercise can be an effective weapon in the fight against cardiovascular diseases in people suffering fro rheumatism.
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: There is increased recognition of an excess risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with rheumatic disorders. Physical inactivity is a frequent complication of arthritis, and also common in the general population. In this review, we highlight recent findings on risk factors for cardiovascular disease in patients with rheumatic diseases, and explore the role of physical activity for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.
RECENT FINDINGS: Inflammatory mechanisms are clearly involved in cardiovascular disease in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. In rheumatoid arthritis, disability is also a major predictor of cardiovascular disease. A sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of cardiovascular disease in the general population, and high physical activity prevents cardiovascular disease mortality and morbidity. Successful treatment of rheumatic disease with control of inflammation and improved functional capacity may also reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
SUMMARY: As part of the effort to prevent vascular comorbidity, regular exercise should be encouraged in patients with rheumatic diseases, and structured interventions to reduce adverse lifestyle factors scientifically evaluated.
Posted in rheumatoid arthritis March 7th, 2007 by admin | No comments
This article looking into the connection between joint repair and rheumatic diseases is by Ringe and colleagues from Berlin. It is available in full from pubmed using the ID 17309320.
Chronic inflammation during rheumatoid arthritis and degenerative processes during osteoarthritis eventually result in joint destruction.
Anti-inflammatory therapies facilitate the inhibition or delay of progressing joint cartilage and bone loss, but do not regenerate these tissues. Surgical procedures are quite unsatisfactory in long-term evaluation and often lead to endoprothetic joint replacement. Present tissue engineering technologies offer new strategies for the treatment of cartilage and bone defects. Here, beyond implantation of cell suspensions, biomaterials combined with tissue-specific cells or mesenchymal stem cells are clinically applied. This review focuses on state-of-the-art and future in situ mesenchymal stem cell-based tissue engineering approaches for joint repair in patients with rheumatic diseases.
The full article is published in the journal expert opinion on biological therapy.
Want to learn more about the future of diseases? Get your college degree online today! University of Phoenix has online medical
classes. Get your education at your own pace online.
Posted in rheumatoid arthritis February 22nd, 2007 by admin | 1 comment
A sedentary lifestyle remains a major threat to health in contemporary societies. To get more insight in the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in exercise participation, twin samples from seven countries participating in the GenomEUtwin project were used.
Methodology
Self-reported data on leisure time exercise behavior from Australia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and United Kingdom were used to create a comparable index of exercise participation in each country (60 minutes weekly at a minimum intensity of four metabolic equivalents).
Principal Findings
Modest geographical variation in exercise participation was revealed in 85,198 subjects, aged 19–40 years. Modeling of monozygotic and dizygotic twin resemblance showed that genetic effects play an important role in explaining individual differences in exercise participation in each country. Shared environmental effects played no role except for Norwegian males. Heritability of exercise participation in males and females was similar and ranged from 48% to 71% (excluding Norwegian males).
Conclusions
Genetic variation is important in individual exercise behavior and may involve genes influencing the acute mood effects of exercise, high exercise ability, high weight loss ability, and personality. This collaborative study suggests that attempts to find genes influencing exercise participation can pool exercise data across multiple countries and different instruments.
This article from PLOS is by Janine Stubbe et al. from the Vrije university in the Netherlands.
The Pubmed ID is PMCID: 1762341
Posted in rheumatoid arthritis, Uncategorized January 23rd, 2007 by admin | No comments
