Complementary and Alternative Medicine Therapies May Benefit Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

A large randomized, controlled trial of 121 patients with active RA compared the use of TWHF extract at 60 mg three times daily to sulfasalazine at 1 g twice daily. At 24 weeks, patients receiving TWHF had significantly higher ACR20, ACR50, and ACR70 response rates and saw improvement in their Health Assessment Questionnaire score.

Tibetan Five Nectar Formula Medicated Bath Therapy for RA

Tibetan Five Nectar Formula, a bath therapy, is derived from five types of plants and has been considered to have antiinflammatory and immunomodulating effects for patients with RA.

The benefits of this therapy have been reported in a number of studies. However, these studies generally are of poor quality and thus are hard to evaluate critically.

In summary, RA remains a therapeutically challenging chronic condition to control. While existing evidence regarding the use of complementary and alternative medicine modalities on RA remains limited, the data outlined above suggest that some of these treatments warrant further exploration.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Wang is director at the Center for Integrative Medicine, and an associate professor of medicine in the division of rheumatology at Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.

References

1. Tam LS, Leung PC, Li TK, Zhang L, Li EK. Acupuncture in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis: A double-blind controlled pilot study. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2007;7:35.
2. Zhou J, Zhu Q. Effects of acupuncture on the rheumatoid arthritis. Clin J Rheumatol. 2000;4:169-171.
3. Liu G, Liu L, Luo SD, Lv M, Wang C. Therapeutic effect of electroacupuncture combined with medicine on acute rheumatoid arthritis. Chin Acupunct Moxibustion. 2003;23:712-714.
4. Liu W, Liu B, Wang Y, et al. Observation on the therapeutic effect of acupuncture and moxibustin in 120 cases of rheumatoid arthritis. Chin Acupunct Moxibustion. 2003;23:577-578.
5. Jiang S, Fan FY. Clinical observation on 40 cases of atrophic arthritis treated by acupuncture and moxibustion. Hunan Guiding J TCM. 2003;9:41-42.
6. Cui L, Guo RX, Gen W. The effect of acupuncture on reducing the pain of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Ann Acupunct. 2001;3:185-186.
7. Wang C, Roubenoff R, Lau J, et al. Effect of Tai Chi in adults with rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatology. 2005; 44:685-687.
8. Tao X, Younger J, Fan FZ, Wang B, Lipsky PE. Benefit of an extract of Tripterygium Wilfordii Hook F in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Arthritis Rheum. 2002;46:1735-1743.