Friday, 27th May 2005 (5861 views)

Gold has been used to treat various health conditions for a long time, but now new research has shown injecting gold and using another treatment can considerably reduce arthritis severity.

The Arthritis Research Center of Canada in Vancouver tested 65 patients over a period of time injecting them with either gold or inactive "placebo" injections.

Dr John M Esdaile and colleagues found that gold can speed up treatment response with methotrexate, with more gold treated patients reporting response after 48 weeks.

As well as improving response the gold injections were found to be more cost effective too.

"Given the high costs of (newer anti-rheumatic drugs), we believe that there continues to be an important role for gold in combination with methotrexate, especially when cost is an issue," the researchers claimed.

Several observation studies have suggested gold can boost treatment response but until now it has not been investigated, according to Reuters.

Methotrexate is the standard drug used to treat the disease, with the gold combination the best treatment when methotrexate fails to provide response on its own.

 

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