Osteoarthritis is an inflammation of joints caused by the depletion of the cartilage on the ends of the bones due to the wear and tear over time.
The disease is one most common forms of arthritis that affect millions of people worldwide.
According to the statistics, in the US, approximately 10% of men and 13% of women aged 60 years or older have osteoarthritis (OA).
Most common risk factors found in patients with OA are older adults, female gender, overweight and obesity, knee injury, repetitive use of joints, low bone density.
Besides pain on the joints, the other most common symptoms of OA include tenderness, stiff, low flexibility, grating sensation.
Conventionally, treatment of OA is focused on managing symptoms, by reducing pain, stiffness and swelling through the use of pain killers, improving joint mobility and flexibility and maintaining a healthy weight by exercise.
Some researchers suggested that the high prevalence of OA in the US has become a burden to the health care cost and economic burden.
Dr.Bitton R, the lead scientist at the Health Plan of Nevada wrote, "approximately one-third of direct OA expenditures are allocated for medications, much of which goes toward pain-related agents. Hospitalization costs comprise nearly half of direct costs, although these expenditures are consumed by only 5% of OA patients who undergo knee or hip replacement surgery".
And, "Indirect costs for OA are also high, largely a result of work-related losses and home-care costs".
Bromelain, a proteolytic enzyme found in pineapples (Ananas comosus) has been used in traditional medicine as an inflammatory agent and to treat pains, strains, and muscle aches and pains and ease back pain and chronic joint pain, skin diseases, etc.
With an aim to find a natural compound for diseases associated with inflammation, researchers investigated the effects of bromelain in mild-to-moderate knee OA patients.
The randomized, single-blind, active-controlled pilot study included 40 knee OA patients randomized to receive oral bromelain (500 mg/day) or diclofenac (100 mg/day).
At week 4, both bromelain and diclofenac treated groups showed an improvement of total Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) and pain subscales compared to the baseline.
According to the tested assays, bromelain and diclofenac groups exerted similar effects after 4 weeks.
At week 16 of bromelain treatment, patients had improved total WOMAC scores (12.2 versus 25.5), pain subscales (2.4 versus 5.6), stiffness subscales (0.8 versus 2.0), and function subscales (9.1 versus 17.9), and physical component of SF-36 (73.3 versus 65.4) as compared with baseline values.
In other words, bromelain reduced symptoms and improved quality of life in OA patients by inhibiting the levels of oxidative stress and overexpression of pro-inflammatory cytokines at week 16.
Based on the results, researchers after taking other factors into account wrote, "Our results show the inhibitory effect of enzyme therapy on collagen-induced arthritis in rats, as well as the efficacy of cyclosporin".
Taken altogether, bromelain may be considered supplements for the prevention and treatment of osteoarthritis (OA), pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.
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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.
Sources
(1) Improved WOMAC score following 16-week treatment with bromelain for knee osteoarthritis by Kasemsuk T1, Saengpetch N2, Sibmooh N1, Unchern S. (PubMed)
(2) The economic burden of osteoarthritis by Bitton R. (PubMed)
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