Steroid shots do little for knee pain of arthritis
Doctors often prescribe steroid injections for the pain of knee arthritis, but a rigorous trial has found they work no better than a placebo.
Researchers randomly assigned 140 men and women over 45 with painful knee osteoarthritis to injections of eithera corticosteroid or a saline placebo. The subjects were injected every three months for two years, with neither the patients nor the people who gave the shots knowing who got the placebo. The study is in JAMA.
At each visit, the participantsfilled out pain questionnaire sand took tests of physical ability. At the end, there was no overall difference between the two groups in pain, stiffness or how well someone could stand from a seated position or walk. Bone and joint scans also showed no significant differences, except for a clinic ally insignificant cartilage loss in the steroid group.
The lead author, Dr. Timothy E. M cA lin don, the chief of rheum a to logy at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said that steroid injections for short-term pain relief might be useful, but not over the long term.
“There’ s a lot of excitement abouttreating inflammation to influence this disease ,” he said ,“but this study is a test of that notion, and it’ s negative. So we really have to question whether it’ s correct.”
Yogurt may be good for the bones
Eating yogurt may lead to stronger bones.
Researchers tracked 4,310 Irish adults 60 and older, gatheringinformation on diet and lifestyle with questionnaires. They measured bone density and joint deterioration with X-rays and MRI scans, and tested participants’ physical ability. The study is in Osteoporosis International.
After adjusting for age, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and other health and behavioral characteristics, they found that compared with those who were not yogurt eaters, people who ate yogurt daily had a 3 to 4 percent increase in bone mineral density.
Eating yogurt daily was associated with a 39 percent lower risk of osteoporosis in women and a 52 percent lower risk in men compared with those who did note at yogurt. Yogurt eaters also performed better on tests of physical fitness.
The lead author, Ea mon J. Laird, are search fellow at Trinity College Dublin, said that the study wasobservation also it could not prove cause and effect.
Still, he said ,“The main message is that yogurt is a good source of micro nutrients, vitamin D, B vitamins, and calcium—and of protein and prob io ti cs as well. We think it could be a these things that has the beneficial effect .”
He noted that other dairy products did not produce a similar effect and cautioned that some yogurts are high in sugar ,“so we have to be careful about that.”
Traveling abroad? Get a measles shot
Many adults who are not immune to measles travel outside the United States without being vaccinated and risk bringing home a highly contagious and sometimes fatal disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends most adults born after 1956 get at least one dose of the vaccine unless they can show they have been vaccinated or have had measles.
Researchers gathered data from questionnaires filled out by 40,810 patients at 24 sites nationwide that provide travel health advice and vaccinations. They had information on vaccines provided, age, medicalconditions, reasons for travel and destinations.
The study, in Anna ls of Internal Medicine, found that 6,612 of thetravelers were not immune to measles. Of those, 3,477 were not vaccinated at the consultation, most for legitimate reasons,including pregnancy. But 1,689 of them—48percent—simply refused the vaccination.
But they should be. The lead author, Dr. Emily P. Hy le, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that measles has been eliminated in the United States and that all new cases are imported.