Last Monday we discussed the final segment of our arthritis block and covered a research article looking into the treatment of RA by breaking from the norm and not going with anti TNF alpha treatment, but rather an anti IL-1 treatment. It was believed that TNF drives most of the IL production, thus by targeting and block TNF, IL-1 would be suppressed as well. However they found that anti TNF treatment was only beneficial in reducing inflammation and that too when administered before or at onset of the disease. In studying using anti IL treatment, it was found that there was a significant effect seen in decreasing joint damage and destruction, and that too when given at onset or after induced arthritis.
The study did a good job in demonstrating how using this form of treatment as compared to what was previously thought, would be more beneficial in treating and reducing the effects of arthritis. The well formed and easy to read figures and graphs even demonstrate that anti TNF treatment does indeed only reduce some inflammation at onset of induced arthritis but has no beneficial physiological effect as the disease progresses. However use of anti anti IL treatment was beneficial in relieving inflammation and reducing joint destruction; which brings about a question as to why there was no test done in testing administering both drugs to the animal models and seeing the effect of both. Allowing anti TNF treatment to work in the early stages, and IL to become of use in the later developing and later processes.
However Dr. Cohen mentioned that still Il-1 treatment inst being used, so what is it about the study that they're leaving out that we need to know, or is it that in the 12 years that have passed since this paper has been published, more research has been shown that anti IL-1 isn't the best treatment after all.
Keep in mind arthritis costs the US economy over $86 billion per year. Thus cutting edge research will continue to find the most effective drug administered in the lowest amount.
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