Vagus nerve stimulation significantly reduces rheumatoid arthritis symptoms
northwell.edu
northwell.edu
My wife came out of this conference saying, everyone is just throwing everything at the wall and see what sticks with vagal nerve stimulation. Controls are minimal to none in most studies. Of course her perspective is from the regulatory side.
Given that vagus nerve stimulation has failed in a placebo controlled trial for depression, I think we should be cautious about this and wait for some proper science.
It irks me when people do shoddy science like this, which basically tells us nothing.
A single paper claiming vaccines causing autism is a great example of this...
Is it? It doesn't seem certainly true to me.
The non-conscious part of the mind can tell that "something" is being done to it, and can draw comfort from that alone.
"In one circuit, termed “the inflammatory reflex,” action potentials transmitted in the vagus nerve inhibit the production of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), an inflammatory molecule that is a major therapeutic target in RA. Although studied in animal models of arthritis and other inflammatory diseases, whether electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve can inhibit TNF production in humans has remained unknown. The positive mechanistic results reported here extend the preclinical data to the clinic and reveal that vagus nerve stimulation inhibits TNF and attenuates disease severity in RA patients."
Cytokines are "any of a number of substances...that are secreted by certain cells of the immune system"
Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammation of the joints causing pain. Inflammation is caused by your immune system to heal a problem, like a cut or an infection. This vagus nerve technique works by suppressing your immune system.
I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but maybe a better path to a cure is to stop the underlying cause of the inflammation?
"Doctors don’t know exactly what causes RA. It may be a combination of genes and environment" - WebMD. The body is attacking itself, finding out why sounds important to me.
I have horrible seasonal allergies, and although no one really knows the underlying cause, immunization therapy via injections of antigens has results in significant reduction of symptoms. So in my case, a non drug treatment that aims to blunt the body's response has resulted in the most important treatment of my allergies, even though a "cure" and the underlying cause is not well understood.
From an FDA hearing on VNS: "there were patients who were very good responders, becoming essentially seizure-free, as well as patients who were poor responders, having 100 percent or greater increase in their seizure frequency," and it was very difficult to predict how a given patient would respond. [1]
[1] http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/AC/97/transcpt/3299t1.pdf p127
I think this is the actual study:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/30/1605635113.full
If the electrical stimulation is effective, I would say it would probably be preferable to most drug therapies since just about all drugs have serious side-effects when taken over a lifetime - certainly mainstream rheumatoid arthritis drugs like Prednisone can have horrific side-effects.
Something new with few side effects might help lots of people avoid surgery.
I have been on a TNF-a inhibitor for over a year and the results thus far have been literally life changing - for the better. I haven't been this healthy or had this much energy since before adulthood.
I'm sure there are many patients who would be happy for a more cost effective option.
Interesting question is whether they then need to go through the process of FDA/similar approval. The cost savings aren't as simple as just creating the chemical structure... We are talking about immunoglobulins
They're also very, very expensive.
C diff, Lysteria, and Salmonella... Oddly, ecoli doesn't appear on the list. See table #2 & #3