Research on inflammatory arthritis

[HeronNS]

arthritisresearchuk.org/new...

[Hidden]

Probably another 20 years before a drug comes through. Thank you for sharing.

[HeronNS in reply to Hidden]

We won't need a drug if we learn what the causes of the diseases are.

[Hidden in reply to HeronNS]

You have a valid point there. We already have a rough idea but if your own immune system is "wrecked" along with a certain genetic proclivity for autoimmunity, plus this and the other, that's such a tall order to begin to "fix" it. The Dietary approach seems important and lots of people are already experimenting. The only promising one at the moment seems to be a stem cell therapy. Some people already had this therapy in other diseases. So am I right to think that the alternative practitioners were right all along about "leaky gut"?? Really interesting research which again supports autoimmune diseases and an underlying infectious factor.

[HeronNS in reply to Hidden]

It's quite fascinating, really. And I agree, if we are too quick to dismiss "alternative" remedies it may well be to our detriment. Look how Pasteur was vilified because of his germ theory. Me, I've been finding that since PMR and the lovely side effects of pred it's important to avoid most wheat, which hadn't bothered me before, and I'd inwardly laughed at acquaintances who said wheat was bad for them. But I do think it may be possible to use the microbiome with very little addition of other medication, or perhaps only a short term dosing, to heal various diseases. What about the people who've recovered from c. difficile only after receiving healthy gut bacteria from a donor, or the discovery that c section babies should be exposed to their mother's birth canal biome before random microorganisms floating in the hospital air colonize the newborn's gut? We've also learned that when we eat we are not only feeding ourselves, but also our microbiome, so it's important, essential really, to feed the good bacteria to preserve our own health.

[Queenfisher]

I think this most interesting research could herald a whole new avenue of medicine, one where it is possible to treat a disease process at its source rather than having to throw huge amounts of drugs at it as we do now, which then sets up the potential for causing havoc in other systems in the body.

Thanks for posting the link Heron!