New Standard For Vitamin D Testing To Ensure Accurate Test Results
At a time of increasing concern about low vitamin D levels in the world's population and increased use of blood tests for the vitamin, scientists are reporting development of a much-needed reference material to assure that measurements of vitamin D levels are accurate. The report appears in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry. Karen Phinney and colleagues explain that medical research suggests vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency may be even more common than previously thought and a risk factor for more than just bone diseases.
Link Between Ultra Short Telomeres And Osteoarthritis
Telomeres, the very ends of chromosomes, become shorter as we age. When a cell divides it first duplicates its DNA and, because the DNA replication machinery fails to get all the way to the end, with each successive cell division a little bit more is missed. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Arthritis Research & Therapy shows that cells from osteoarthritic knees have abnormally shortened telomeres and that the percentage of cells with ultra short telomeres increases the closer to the damaged region within the joint.
Do Herbal Meds Help Osteoarthritis? Probably Not
A comprehensive review of herbal medicine products in the latest issue of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) shows that there is little conclusive evidence to justify the widespread use of herbal medicines to relieve the symptoms of the painful joint condition osteoarthritis. The products involved contain devil's claw and recently, the UK drug regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has approved several of these products under the Traditional Herbal Registrations scheme.