Does the climate actually have an affect on rheumatism? | EUROtoday
Lrheumatism brings collectively roughly 200 ailments that have an effect on the parts of the joints, specifically the bone and the articular cartilage. They additionally have an effect on their tender elements, such because the ligaments on bones or the tendons connecting muscular tissues to bones. They are categorized, in keeping with their origin, into non-inflammatory and inflammatory rheumatism.
The first embrace osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, particularly affecting the aged, musculoskeletal issues or fibromyalgia. Inflammatory rheumatism contains types of arthritis, equivalent to ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis, two autoimmune ailments. Today, greater than 16 million French individuals undergo from rheumatism.
Pain, subjective symptom
In 2019, a group from the University of Manchester studied the signs of greater than 2,500 sufferers over fifteen months. Several pathologies have been represented, equivalent to osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. Symptoms have been collected by way of a smartphone utility, with info together with climate, temper or bodily exercise. This is without doubt one of the first citizen science experiments to make use of an app.
The authors counsel that any such machine could be provided to sufferers to foretell their ache. They discovered that it’s relative humidity, that’s to say the saturation of the air with water vapor, and atmospheric stress which correlate essentially the most with joint ache.
ALSO READ Osteoarthritis, rheumatism: searching for “pain-relieving” meals This correlation, though important, stays modest. For instance, altering each climate variables concurrently ends in solely a small enhance in ache. Three years later, a group from the identical college determined to reanalyze the identical information. It confirmed that there’s certainly a hyperlink between local weather and joint ache, however that it issues round 4% of volunteers. These researchers clarify that ache is subjective and coded by the mind. The response due to this fact varies between sufferers and depends upon interindividual variations in nervous activation.
Tendon proprioceptors
The hyperlink between joint ache and climate is the topic of heated debate amongst scientists. In 2017, a world collaboration, led by Dr Jena, allowed the evaluation of the signs of roughly 1.5 million Americans over the age of 65. Their conclusion is that there isn’t a correlation between joint ache and wet days. Four days later, the response to this scientific article was not lengthy in coming! This is how the Dr Bamji, a retired rheumatologist, begins his response: “The reason why Dr Jena and her colleagues failed to find a link between joint pain and rain is simple. They got the variable wrong – and, to my knowledge, no one considered the correct one. »
How could rain or relative humidity affect patients’ pain when our body has no way of detecting fluctuations in humidity? The Dr Bamji specifies that the joint is a structure allowing proprioception, or deep sensitivity. This is the ability, conscious or unconscious, to perceive the position of body parts without using vision.
In the tendons are housed “proprioceptors”, receptors delicate to the stress induced by muscle contraction. Proprioceptors are additionally delicate to adjustments in atmospheric stress. Atmospheric stress truly follows variations in relative humidity. As for proprioceptors, they transmit their alerts to sensory nerves which move to the mind.
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Answer
Joint ache is immediately linked to atmospheric stress, and not directly to relative humidity. Each affected person has a sense depending on their very own central nervous system. The most necessary factor is to take heed to your ache, for instance by protecting a day by day symptom diary!
* Valérie Lannoy, postdoctoral scholar in microbiology, Sorbonne University.
https://www.lepoint.fr/eureka/la-meteo-a-t-elle-vraiment-une-influence-sur-les-rhumatismes-21-11-2024-2575944_4706.php