Steroid shots can hurt joints
A common therapy used to treat joint pain may often do more harm than good, reports NBCNews.com. Corticosteroid shots are routinely used to reduce pain and inflammation from osteoarthritis, a chronic condition that affects more than 30 million Americans. But a new study suggests that the injections could actually accelerate the progression of osteoarthritis, potentially hastening the need for joint replacement surgery. Researchers at Boston University reviewed previous studies on the shots and also looked at data on 459 Boston Medical Center patients who had received one to three corticosteroid injections in the hip or knee in 2018. They found that 8 percent of the patients had developed complications— including cartilage loss, stress fractures, bone deterioration, and even the collapse of the joint—in the two to 15 months after the shots. It’s unclear why corticosteroids may have an adverse effect on joints, but there is some evidence that they can be toxic to cartilage. “We’ve been telling patients that even if these injections don’t relieve your pain, they’re not going to hurt you,” says study leader Ali Guermazi. “Now we suspect that this is not necessarily the case.”
walking speed as a marker for cognitive capacity in older people, because gait is linked to the central nervous system. But this is the first study to suggest that the same analysis might work for younger folk, reports BBC.com. The data came from a long-term study that followed some 900 New Zealanders from their birth in the 1970s to their 45th birthday, testing their walking speed and examining their physical health and brain function. The slower walkers tended to display signs of accelerated aging in their lungs, teeth, and immune systems, as the researchers had expected. But to their surprise, MRI scans also found that the brains of the slow walkers looked notably older than the others. To add insult to injury, strangers who were asked to assess the age of the participants from photos of their faces said the slow walkers looked older. Lead author Terrie Moffitt, from Duke University, says the results show that “a slow walk is a problem sign decades before old age.”
increased in about two-thirds of the lakes during that period and decreased in only six. Among the lakes that improved at any point in the study period, only those that experienced the least warming were able to sustain the improvements in bloom conditions. “Algal blooms really are getting more widespread,” co-author Anna Michalak tells ScienceDaily.com. “It’s not just that we are paying more attention to them now than we were decades ago.”