research reports and media, page-100

Dear Paradigmers (well, most are 'Dear' perhaps),

I present to you another media article I discovered in my local library yesterday. Back pain...how is this related to PAR? Well I can't reproduce the entire article from the mag here but let me quote from it...


_{Latest edition of new Scientist}


First fact..."Backache is an extraordinarily common burden, with one in four adults experiencing it right now". The articles goes on to state that MRI diagnosis may actually be adding to the problem. How? Its been found that the MRI picks up smaller details of the spine and back "Once you start to look for abnormalities, you will find them". Doctors are then more likely to prescribe anti-inflammatories and pain killers "which may be unnecessary, ineffective and sometimes harmful" as we have discussed here at HC on several occasions. In fact it is found only a small percentage of patients that have back pain will have something a bit more serious that may warrant surgery.

As PAR recently announced they may have a better indicator, the COMP biomarker which will possibly be a better indicator of a more serious condition of cartilage degradation and this can be possibly monitored over time to see the rate of deterioration. That's my speculation and thoughts so take that into account.

Not all backpain is a result of OA but with some 33 individual bones in the spine, the evidence is there that it can affect many people¹. How common can it be? "Lumbar spine osteoarthritis (OA) is very common, with estimates of prevalence ranging from 40–85 %" ²

Furthermore the New Scientist article also states "In countries like the UK, where doctors are advised against offering surgery for back pain, people are offered anti-inflammatory steroid injections, but these have been shown to be no more effective thank placebo". Enter PAR and IPPS. The stage is set.

If nothing else at least the team at PAR have some more very interesting research to do to combat such common problems as back pain (related to joints of the spine as an example) and to tackle and provide a real alternative to the nasty anti-inflammatories that actually do so much harm.
DYOR.


REFERENCES

1) https://www.arthritis.org/about-arthritis/types/back-pain/articles/oa-and-back-pain.php
2)https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3606549/