Treatment slow to transform common arthritis-associated muscle loss

Living without manipulation to promote muscle growth or repair or with pain medication more than 20 million people in the nearly 20 million people diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) suffer from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD-SM) a common chronic gastrointestinal system disease that is characterized by manifestation of chronic diarrhea abdominal pain abdominal cramps abdominal pain bloating pain inside the abdominal muscles or in the neck constricts or makes it difficultimpossible to move the upper part of the body.

Research published online in the journal Renal and Digestive Disease reveals that in the absence of systematic and appropriate treatment of such disease patients are constantly affected by gastrointestinal and systemic pain over the longer term.

Patients throughout the globe are almost devoid of knowledge of the disease statistics in contrast to national studies which are extremely important for any patient hoping to benefit from a valuable outcome involving the advancement of multiple patient communities explains Physis Antiales Principal Investigator at the University of Copenhagen and winner of the prestigious Experimental Therapeutic Techniques award the highest imaginable honours for a researcher.

For the study researchers recruited 20 adult volunteers who were living in 89 countries. They underwent mitochondrial-targeted targeted therapy (MT) a relatively new technique for treating for example congenital dysplasias in children and juvenile arthritis-affected patients. Their medication was based on antibiotics or synthetic clarifiers that act by blocking a particular part of the microbiome.

This approach has shown great promise in clinical trials for patients with IBD. It is the first new option to treat IBD that is being licensed in the world. Now our results indicate that mitochondrial-targeted MT offers patients a treatment option that is neither a floodgating attack nor an inflexible good-in-good-or-bad attitude explains the universitys head of the study Patrik Brundin Professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine Inflammation and Immunity Disorders.

Working together with other researchers behind the study he and his team including those participating in the MT Treatment and Management Groups also found that approximately half of those patients suffering from IBD who were receiving the MT procedure did not experience any complications. The MT group has however reported that its patients affected experience worsening pain and reduced muscle strength over the longer term. There has not been any scientific investigation into how effective MT treatment or medical management might be for these patients. Many patients we have treated have been unable to improve their symptoms even though their levels of disability are comparable to those of people living with dry infected or dysfunctional Crohns disease explains the consultant oncologist Dr. Niklas Fogh Rasmussen at the University of Copenhagen.

This study may suggest that currently utilised drugs to treat IBD are less protective than their use in other diseases. It has been well established that most drugs are not antiseptic. They interact with bacteria in the environment and they may also destroy beneficial cells. Now our results indicate that MT therapy may outperform spectrum antibiotics in patients with IBD in particular for those patients regarded as having a very low burden of illness concludes psychologist and osteopontist Dr. Danil Vollmeret.

The researchers conclude that they have the rationale and the data to resume a large-scale trial of MT therapy for IBD given the effects we have already seen.