Wirtten by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. Rose hips may help offset the damage to joints by reactive oxygen species thought to contribute to rheumatoid arthritis.
Rheumatoid arthritis affects an estimated 1.5 million American adults (1). It affects women twice as much as men (2), and is characterized by painful erosion of cartilage and bone (3). Although there is no cure for rheumatoid arthritis, the medical approach to treatment lies in slowing disease progression with a class of medications called “disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs”, the most popular of which is methotrexate (4). But while methotrexate elicits benefits within 3 months, improvement plateaus after 6 months (5), so there is a need for adjunctive treatments with methotrexate.
Fortunately, alternative approaches to rheumatoid arthritis have found some success in Ayurvedic plants (6) and maintaining healthy blood levels of vitamin D (7), with a third option in the form of rose hips.
A 2010 study (8) involved 89 patients (9 males, 80 females) aged 45 to 67 with rheumatoid arthritis (diagnosed according to the revised American Rheumatism Association criteria (9)) for an average of 13 years. They were given either 5 grams of rose hips powder (44 subjects) or placebo (45 subjects) daily for 6 months. Before and after the study, they completed various questionnaires concerning their arthritis symptoms.
After 6 months, researchers observed the following:
| Disability (10) | Pain (11) | Quality of Life (12) | Physical Activity (12) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rose Hips | 8.9% decrease (1.13 to 1.03) | 29.4% decrease (47.50 to 33.57) | 12.1% decrease* (11.57 to 10.18) | 10% increase (32.91 to 36.22) |
| Placebo | 3.6% increase (1.11 to 1.15) | 7.4% decrease (48.16 to 44.64) | 2% increase (10.87 to 11.09) | 1.7% increase (33.19 to 33.78) |
| p-value | 0.032 | 0.012 | 0.043 | 0.013 |
*A decrease in the score indicates an increase in overall Quality of Life
When suggesting a mechanism for how rose hips elicited these beneficial effects, the researchers pointed to the “strong antioxidant activity” of rose hips (13) that may help offset the damage to joints by reactive oxygen species thought to contribute to rheumatoid arthritis (14).
The researchers went on to find these results “promising” but state “the values should be taken with precaution” and that “studies with higher sample size and adequate power for multivariate analysis are warranted.
Source: Willich, S. N., et al. “Rose hip herbal remedy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis–a randomised controlled trial.” Phytomedicine 17.2 (2010): 87-93.
© 2009 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
Posted February 19, 2016.
Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Hauppauge, NY. You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.PitchingDoc.com
References:
- “Rheumatoid Arthritis” posted on the CDC website
- Alamanos Y, Drosos AA. Epidemiology of adult rheumatoid arthritis. Autoimmun Rev 2005;4:130–136
- O’Dell JR (2004) Therapeutic strategies for rheumatoid arthritis. N Engl J Med 350:2591–2602
- No authors. Guidelines for the management of rheumatoid arthritis: 2002 Update. Arthritis Rheum 2002; 46: 328–346
- Borchers AT, Keen CL, Cheema GS, Gershwin ME (2004) The use of methotrexate in rheumatoid arthritis. Semin Arthritis Rheum 34:465–483
- Burgos RA. Efficacy of an Andrographis paniculata composition for the relief of rheumatoid arthritis symptoms: a prospective randomized placebo-controlled trial. Clin Rheumatol 2009 Aug;28(8):931-46. doi: 10.1007/s10067-009-1180-5. Epub 2009 Apr 29
- Haga HJ. Severe deficiency of 25-hydroxyvitamin D(3) (25-OH-D (3)) is associated with high disease activity of rheumatoid arthritis. Clin Rheumatol 2013 Jan 15. [Epub ahead of print]
- Willich SN. Rose hip herbal remedy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis – a randomised controlled trial. Phytomedicine 2010 Feb;17(2):87-93. doi: 10.1016/j.phymed.2009.09.003. Epub 2009 Oct 8.
- Arnett, F.C., Edworthy, S.M., Bloch, D.A., McShane, D.J., Fries, J.F., Cooper, N.S., Healey, L.A., Kaplan, S.R., Liang, M.H., Luthra, H.S., 1988. The American Rheumatism Association 1987 revised criteria for the classification of rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Rheum. 31, 315–324
- Wolfe, F., 2001. Which HAQ is best? A comparison of the HAQ, MHAQ and RA-HAQ, a difficult 8 item HAQ (DHAQ), and a rescored 20 item HAQ (HAQ20): analyses in 2491 rheumatoid arthritis patients following leflunomide initiation. J. Rheumatol. 28, 982–989.
- Prevoo, M.L.L., van’t Hof, M.A., Kuper, H.H., van Leeuwen, M.A., van de Putte, L.B., van Riel, P.L., 1995. Modified disease activity scores that include twenty-eight joint counts. Arthritis Rheum. 38, 44–48.
- De Jong, Z., Van der Heijde, D., McKenna, S.P., Whalley, D., 1997. The reliability and construct validity of the RAQoL: a rheumatoid arthritis-specific quality of life instrument. Br. J. Rheumatol. 36, 878–883
- Halvorsen, B.L., Holte, K., Myhrstad, M.C.W., Barikmo, I., Hvattum, E., Remberg, S.F., Wold, A.-B., Haffner, K., Baugerød, H., Andersen, L.F., Moskaug, J.Ø., Jacobs, D.R., Blomhoff, R., 2002. A systematic screening of total antioxidants in dietary plants. J. Nutr. 132, 461–471
- Biemond, P., Swaak, A.J., Koster, J.F., 1984. Protective factors against oxygen free radicals and hydrogen peroxide in rheumatoid arthritis synovial fluid. Arthritis Rheum. 27, 760–765.
