29 ms·

A new treatment for arthritis: Vagus-nerve stimulation

170 points by WaitWaitWha 4y ago

abledon 4y ago
another win for introducing bio-electricity into our modern arsenal of western medical solutions.
- hypefi 4y ago
  Could it be that the introduction of EMF radiating devices into our life's created the problem in the first place, and now we are trying to rebalance with similar mechanisms ??
consumer451 4y ago
I was diagnosed with arthritis at a very young age. This was likely due to (at least related to) snowboard straps being too tight around my left ankle. I hobbled every morning for an hour, then a couple hours, then half the day. One day I learned about modifying my diet to avoid inflammation. I greatly limited, but did not entirely eliminate, tomatoes and potatoes in my diet. The effects were literally life changing. I no longer hobble each morning. If someone you know is suffering from arthritis I can highly recommend conducting this experiment for a few months.
- GoToRO 4y ago
  Why tomatoes and potatoes?
  - christkv 4y ago
    Both are in the Nightshades family which contains a lot of alkaloids that are believed to be a cause of inflammation in some people. I've not seen any real studies about this though.
  - consumer451 4y ago
    Well, it could be placebo effect, but the thinking is/was that: > Nightshade Vegetables > Eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are all members of the nightshade family. These vegetables contain the chemical solanine, which some people claim aggravates arthritis pain and inflammation. However, most reports are anecdotal, and while it certainly might be true for some people, there are no scientific studies done to prove that they actually cause inflammation or make symptoms worse, says Kim Larson, a Seattle-based dietitian and Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Spokesperson. https://www.arthritis.org/health-wellness/healthy-living/nutrition/healthy-eating/best-vegetables-for-arthritis https://www.arthritis.org/health-wellness/healthy-living/nut...
    - boplicity 4y ago
      > there are no scientific studies If this treatment could be turned into a drug that had billions of dollars in revenue, as some arthritis drugs have, then there would be endless studies. Sadly, that's not the world we live in. "Lack of studies" in many cases is code for "there's no money to be made here." This is too bad, because many extremely effective and effectively free treatments are ignored by scientists because they can't fund the research.
      - esperent 4y ago
        This oft-repeated view is frustrating, because a huge number of studies on exactly this kind of thing are done. Should there be more? Of course! But the money has to come from somewhere. For a study on potatoes and inflammation it has to come from the taxpayer or a non-profit institute. For a study on a new drug that has a potential to make a huge profit, of course it's much easier to find someone besides those to fund it. There are many problems with the modern medical system but I don't think this aspect is totally broken, definitely not to the degree that nay sayers would have you believe.
        jackmott 4y ago
        [dead]
      - 4y ago
  - grugagag 4y ago
    Also let's also keep in mind not all inflammation is bad. As an anecdote, I know someone who had rosacea breakout and ended up eliminating tomatoes in particular from her diet and it seemed to do the trick so there should be something in tomatoes that causes inflammation...
    - rgrieselhuber 4y ago
      What is an example of good inflammation?
      - austinjp 4y ago
        Inflammation is a crucial part of the body's response to tissue damage, infection, foreign matter, and more. In response, the capillaries become more permeable. This allows white blood cells to leave the blood stream and enter the tissues to combat infection and destroy damaged tissue. The inflammatory response is part of a complex set of self-defense and repair mechanisms. Sometimes these go wrong, but without them you'd most certainly be dead.
        inthepipe 4y ago
        Tissue damage, infection, foreign matter, etc are all bad. Inflation might help, but I think you’d need to show it’d be helpful without the presence of some worse thing to truly call it beneficial.
        upsidesinclude 4y ago
        Inflammation is part of the immune response. It is beneficial when wounded and that's when the local body should become inflamed. Chronic inflammation is not beneficial. You are conflating the two
        inthepipe 4y ago
        I’m not conflating anything. You’re saying the inflammation is beneficial, but what you’re describing is really a “lesser of two evils” situation, e.g. it’s better to have inflammation than it is to bleed out from a wound. But the best thing would be not to get a wound in the first place.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  Can confirm for tomatoes. Definitely worth a try if you suffer from arthritis.
  - Raidion 4y ago
    Rheumatoid or osteoarthritis?
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      Rheumatoid. For osteoartritis as far as I know there is not much you can do because the damage is already done.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  It's worth drawing a thick distinction between rheumatoid (autoimmune) and osteoarthritis (worn out).
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    Thank you. My wife suffers from this and its night and day different from osteoarthritis and my wife who has has been offered plenty of ridiculous "cures" that people somehow believe highly paid specialists just haven't though of.
    - ralph84 4y ago
      Sorry your wife suffers from this. I just wouldn't be so confident that highly paid specialists have time to keep up on the latest research in their field. In my experience most do not. They're highly paid because they see a lot of patients, not because they read a lot of research.
      - michaelmrose 4y ago
        A lot of medicine isn't latest research as standard of care isn't a fast moving target its just attention to detail.
        galangalalgol 4y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean, but both a co-worker and a co-workers wife found that eliminating nightshades like the GP did, eliminated their need for medication as well. My wife has a different autoimmune disorder, and had good luck eliminating a different food. The autoimmune protocol is the name for the elimination regimen. There is actually a great deal of literature to back this up. But I believe diet doesn't enter standard of care quickly because of low compliance, among more cynical reasons. This is just anecdotal, but it isn't just subjective symptom descriptions either. These people quit meds while under a doctor's care because their antibody tests reduced dramatically on the diet. Ruling out peppers, eggplants and tomatoes isn't fun, but it isn't even close to impossible. Imagine having immune responses to corn! Maybe it won't work, but it only takes about a month to evaluate.
- objetovoador 4y ago
  IIRC inflammation is linked to endotoxins produced by bacteria in the gut. Apparently curcumin has a good reputation for helping people with inflammatory conditions like that. And it's been proposed that it yields positive benefits by modulating the gut rather than being bioactive (curcumin is famously not bioactive).
  - hammock 4y ago
    You’re being downvoted because it sounds like woo but the people downvoting aren’t up to speed on the latest science. Nightshades are tolerated by people with healthy guts and there is a smaller set of people with a gut dysfunction that means the solanine (alkaloids) in nightshades causes leaky gut syndrome leading to the inflammation you are talking about. Curcumin (turmeric) does alleviate this inflammation pretty powerfully, at least on a temporary basis
    - voisin 4y ago
      Can you share any of the science you’ve come across that you find compelling based on sample size, effect side, etc? I’d love to know dosages.
      - hammock 4y ago
        It’s more of a meta analysis in my mind of all the different studies and anecdotes I’ve osmoted over the years. As someone else said earlier, there aren’t great and clear individual studies because there isn’t any money in it. For dosing curcumin, you can try juicing a quarter inch of turmeric root a day and starting there, I have seen that knock out a lot of things within a short number of days
        gardenfelder 4y ago
        Best to use ground black pepper when you use turmeric: that increases the bioavailability of the curcumin
- kian 4y ago
  Can confirm that this also helps for eczema, allergies, asthma, and many other issues associated with inflammation - even weight gain, energy, and digestive issues. Cutting out potatoes, tomatoes, and some of the other nightshade family friends (still love those habaneros, though!) has made a world of difference. Another one, although it is a bit harder to source at the right price, is water. Once you recognize the signs of sudden-onset inflammation, however subtle, when you remove and then try the above foods, it is worth seeing if you are having the same reaction to your water -- in my case, it changed me from a chronically dehydrated person who had to prep his day's water next to him to force himself to drink to someone who will literally get up and go across town to fetch more if there isn't enough in the house without it even feeling like it's taking effort or motivation. It makes a huge difference to your mental clarity, as well.
  - krustyburger 4y ago
    Just what sort of water are you drinking?
  - PcChip 4y ago
    I feel like the water thing needs explanation
- elevenoh 4y ago
  [dead]
- spirit557 4y ago
  Did you eliminate or make any effort to cut out vegetable oils? These are completely awful for health and should not be consumed.
  - guilamu 4y ago
    Sorry, but WHAT? Any citation to backup your claim? Please and thank you.
    - scotty79 4y ago
      It's a fairly new hypothesis, coming out of recognition that plant oils with exception of olive oil, maybe some others, are fairly new thing in human diet and their usage (as replacement for animal fats) kind of correlates with raise of modern diseases and obesity. There are also some molecular pathways that might be triggered by substances in plant oils but there's not much systemic research into this yet. But I think it's all plausible. There's really no harm in restricting yourself to just olive oil out of all extracted plant oils. And since it cuts out most processed foods available on the market it might help you in other ways. You can still eat plant oils with the whole plants they come from becuse you won't be able to eat even remotely close quantities of them this way. Plant oils are not inherently safe. Canola oil for example is just rapeseed oil extracted out of plant variety that contain as little as possible of the poison that makes rapeseed oil not safe for human consumption. The fact that we were able to breed the plant that doesn't immediatelly kill us doesn't mean it's fully safe to eat.
    - spirit557 4y ago
      Omega-6 vegetable oils as a driver of coronary heart disease: the oxidized linoleic acid hypothesis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196963/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196963/ I like that one and it has good references. I could find more (Crisco and trans fats... duh) but I mean come on... Seed oils like canola oil are manufactured and did not exist before 1900. They're totally unnatural and heavily manufactured with solvents, preservatives, high heats, deadorizers, coloring. Seed oils go rancid so fast without chemical processing and preservatives before they're bottled. Do you want to cook with stable saturated fats in ghee that has been used for generations after generations - Or manufactured seed oil, first sold to the public as Crisco by P&G? Seed oils do not occur in nature, they are manufactured. Do you want to shove it down your gut until good enough studies prove it's safe or unsafe? Not me! Vegetable oils. Good history here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uqj35nHB0g&t=749s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uqj35nHB0g&t=749s This doctor looks into numerous studies in this lecture, but fats and seed oils are covered from 749s as linked and the next ~25 minutes. Its part 1 of 3 lectures. Highly recommend
amelius 4y ago
Posted this (about externally stimulating the vagus nerve) a while back because it looked interesting: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201907/vagus-nerve-stimulation-the-outer-ear-takes-center-stage https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201... I bought the equipment to try this myself (basically a TENS device and some electrodes), but have been too afraid to apply it :/
- exmadscientist 4y ago
  You probably already know this, but for the benefit of others: it is very possible to kill yourself if you do this wrong. The vagus nerve (or its mirror on the opposite side of your face, I forget, it's been a while since I worked on this and I've never particularly wanted to revisit it) is involved in pacing your heart. Screw it up and you can end up very dead of cardiac arrest. So be careful trying this stuff at home!
  - voisin 4y ago
    You can avoid the potential for death by slow exhalations and other breathing techniques that have been shown to stimulate the vagus nerve.
    - austinjp 4y ago
      Oh boy. No. Slowing your breathing is not going to protect against the effects of electrically stimulating the vagus nerve. Whether or not the TENS approach to vagus nerve simulation is effective or not, please don't believe this will somehow help.
      - abnry 4y ago
        I think the advice was to forgo TENS in favor of breathing, not to mitigate adverse effects of TENS with breathing.
        austinjp 4y ago
fernly 4y ago
> Both Galvani and SecondWave expect to announce first-in-human data within the next year. In other words, this is vaporware as yet.
HlessClaudesman 4y ago
A family member of mine has a Vagal Nerve Stimulator implant. It hasn't cured his epilepsy, but so far no arthritis (fingers crossed emoji). https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/about-epilepsy/treatment/vagus-nerve-stimulation https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/about-epilepsy/treatment/vagu...
amai 4y ago
You don't need a machine to stimulate your vagus-nerve: Meditation, Massage, Exercise, Music and Cold-Water immersion can do that, too: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/vagus-nerve-stimulation/ https://health.clevelandclinic.org/vagus-nerve-stimulation/

170 points by WaitWaitWha 4y ago

abledon 4y ago

another win for introducing bio-electricity into our modern arsenal of western medical solutions.

hypefi 4y ago
Could it be that the introduction of EMF radiating devices into our life's created the problem in the first place, and now we are trying to rebalance with similar mechanisms ??

consumer451 4y ago

I was diagnosed with arthritis at a very young age. This was likely due to (at least related to) snowboard straps being too tight around my left ankle. I hobbled every morning for an hour, then a couple hours, then half the day. One day I learned about modifying my diet to avoid inflammation. I greatly limited, but did not entirely eliminate, tomatoes and potatoes in my diet. The effects were literally life changing. I no longer hobble each morning. If someone you know is suffering from arthritis I can highly recommend conducting this experiment for a few months.

GoToRO 4y ago
Why tomatoes and potatoes?
- christkv 4y ago
  Both are in the Nightshades family which contains a lot of alkaloids that are believed to be a cause of inflammation in some people. I've not seen any real studies about this though.
- consumer451 4y ago
  Well, it could be placebo effect, but the thinking is/was that: > Nightshade Vegetables > Eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are all members of the nightshade family. These vegetables contain the chemical solanine, which some people claim aggravates arthritis pain and inflammation. However, most reports are anecdotal, and while it certainly might be true for some people, there are no scientific studies done to prove that they actually cause inflammation or make symptoms worse, says Kim Larson, a Seattle-based dietitian and Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Spokesperson. https://www.arthritis.org/health-wellness/healthy-living/nutrition/healthy-eating/best-vegetables-for-arthritis https://www.arthritis.org/health-wellness/healthy-living/nut...
  - boplicity 4y ago
    > there are no scientific studies If this treatment could be turned into a drug that had billions of dollars in revenue, as some arthritis drugs have, then there would be endless studies. Sadly, that's not the world we live in. "Lack of studies" in many cases is code for "there's no money to be made here." This is too bad, because many extremely effective and effectively free treatments are ignored by scientists because they can't fund the research.
    - esperent 4y ago
      This oft-repeated view is frustrating, because a huge number of studies on exactly this kind of thing are done. Should there be more? Of course! But the money has to come from somewhere. For a study on potatoes and inflammation it has to come from the taxpayer or a non-profit institute. For a study on a new drug that has a potential to make a huge profit, of course it's much easier to find someone besides those to fund it. There are many problems with the modern medical system but I don't think this aspect is totally broken, definitely not to the degree that nay sayers would have you believe.
      - jackmott 4y ago
        [dead]
    - 4y ago
- grugagag 4y ago
  Also let's also keep in mind not all inflammation is bad. As an anecdote, I know someone who had rosacea breakout and ended up eliminating tomatoes in particular from her diet and it seemed to do the trick so there should be something in tomatoes that causes inflammation...
  - rgrieselhuber 4y ago
    What is an example of good inflammation?
    - austinjp 4y ago
      Inflammation is a crucial part of the body's response to tissue damage, infection, foreign matter, and more. In response, the capillaries become more permeable. This allows white blood cells to leave the blood stream and enter the tissues to combat infection and destroy damaged tissue. The inflammatory response is part of a complex set of self-defense and repair mechanisms. Sometimes these go wrong, but without them you'd most certainly be dead.
      - inthepipe 4y ago
        Tissue damage, infection, foreign matter, etc are all bad. Inflation might help, but I think you’d need to show it’d be helpful without the presence of some worse thing to truly call it beneficial.
        upsidesinclude 4y ago
        Inflammation is part of the immune response. It is beneficial when wounded and that's when the local body should become inflamed. Chronic inflammation is not beneficial. You are conflating the two
        inthepipe 4y ago
        I’m not conflating anything. You’re saying the inflammation is beneficial, but what you’re describing is really a “lesser of two evils” situation, e.g. it’s better to have inflammation than it is to bleed out from a wound. But the best thing would be not to get a wound in the first place.
ekianjo 4y ago
Can confirm for tomatoes. Definitely worth a try if you suffer from arthritis.
- Raidion 4y ago
  Rheumatoid or osteoarthritis?
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    Rheumatoid. For osteoartritis as far as I know there is not much you can do because the damage is already done.
psychphysic 4y ago
It's worth drawing a thick distinction between rheumatoid (autoimmune) and osteoarthritis (worn out).
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Thank you. My wife suffers from this and its night and day different from osteoarthritis and my wife who has has been offered plenty of ridiculous "cures" that people somehow believe highly paid specialists just haven't though of.
  - ralph84 4y ago
    Sorry your wife suffers from this. I just wouldn't be so confident that highly paid specialists have time to keep up on the latest research in their field. In my experience most do not. They're highly paid because they see a lot of patients, not because they read a lot of research.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      A lot of medicine isn't latest research as standard of care isn't a fast moving target its just attention to detail.
      - galangalalgol 4y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean, but both a co-worker and a co-workers wife found that eliminating nightshades like the GP did, eliminated their need for medication as well. My wife has a different autoimmune disorder, and had good luck eliminating a different food. The autoimmune protocol is the name for the elimination regimen. There is actually a great deal of literature to back this up. But I believe diet doesn't enter standard of care quickly because of low compliance, among more cynical reasons. This is just anecdotal, but it isn't just subjective symptom descriptions either. These people quit meds while under a doctor's care because their antibody tests reduced dramatically on the diet. Ruling out peppers, eggplants and tomatoes isn't fun, but it isn't even close to impossible. Imagine having immune responses to corn! Maybe it won't work, but it only takes about a month to evaluate.
objetovoador 4y ago
IIRC inflammation is linked to endotoxins produced by bacteria in the gut. Apparently curcumin has a good reputation for helping people with inflammatory conditions like that. And it's been proposed that it yields positive benefits by modulating the gut rather than being bioactive (curcumin is famously not bioactive).
- hammock 4y ago
  You’re being downvoted because it sounds like woo but the people downvoting aren’t up to speed on the latest science. Nightshades are tolerated by people with healthy guts and there is a smaller set of people with a gut dysfunction that means the solanine (alkaloids) in nightshades causes leaky gut syndrome leading to the inflammation you are talking about. Curcumin (turmeric) does alleviate this inflammation pretty powerfully, at least on a temporary basis
  - voisin 4y ago
    Can you share any of the science you’ve come across that you find compelling based on sample size, effect side, etc? I’d love to know dosages.
    - hammock 4y ago
      It’s more of a meta analysis in my mind of all the different studies and anecdotes I’ve osmoted over the years. As someone else said earlier, there aren’t great and clear individual studies because there isn’t any money in it. For dosing curcumin, you can try juicing a quarter inch of turmeric root a day and starting there, I have seen that knock out a lot of things within a short number of days
      - gardenfelder 4y ago
        Best to use ground black pepper when you use turmeric: that increases the bioavailability of the curcumin
kian 4y ago
Can confirm that this also helps for eczema, allergies, asthma, and many other issues associated with inflammation - even weight gain, energy, and digestive issues. Cutting out potatoes, tomatoes, and some of the other nightshade family friends (still love those habaneros, though!) has made a world of difference. Another one, although it is a bit harder to source at the right price, is water. Once you recognize the signs of sudden-onset inflammation, however subtle, when you remove and then try the above foods, it is worth seeing if you are having the same reaction to your water -- in my case, it changed me from a chronically dehydrated person who had to prep his day's water next to him to force himself to drink to someone who will literally get up and go across town to fetch more if there isn't enough in the house without it even feeling like it's taking effort or motivation. It makes a huge difference to your mental clarity, as well.
- krustyburger 4y ago
  Just what sort of water are you drinking?
- PcChip 4y ago
  I feel like the water thing needs explanation
elevenoh 4y ago
[dead]
spirit557 4y ago
Did you eliminate or make any effort to cut out vegetable oils? These are completely awful for health and should not be consumed.
- guilamu 4y ago
  Sorry, but WHAT? Any citation to backup your claim? Please and thank you.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    It's a fairly new hypothesis, coming out of recognition that plant oils with exception of olive oil, maybe some others, are fairly new thing in human diet and their usage (as replacement for animal fats) kind of correlates with raise of modern diseases and obesity. There are also some molecular pathways that might be triggered by substances in plant oils but there's not much systemic research into this yet. But I think it's all plausible. There's really no harm in restricting yourself to just olive oil out of all extracted plant oils. And since it cuts out most processed foods available on the market it might help you in other ways. You can still eat plant oils with the whole plants they come from becuse you won't be able to eat even remotely close quantities of them this way. Plant oils are not inherently safe. Canola oil for example is just rapeseed oil extracted out of plant variety that contain as little as possible of the poison that makes rapeseed oil not safe for human consumption. The fact that we were able to breed the plant that doesn't immediatelly kill us doesn't mean it's fully safe to eat.
  - spirit557 4y ago
    Omega-6 vegetable oils as a driver of coronary heart disease: the oxidized linoleic acid hypothesis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196963/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196963/ I like that one and it has good references. I could find more (Crisco and trans fats... duh) but I mean come on... Seed oils like canola oil are manufactured and did not exist before 1900. They're totally unnatural and heavily manufactured with solvents, preservatives, high heats, deadorizers, coloring. Seed oils go rancid so fast without chemical processing and preservatives before they're bottled. Do you want to cook with stable saturated fats in ghee that has been used for generations after generations - Or manufactured seed oil, first sold to the public as Crisco by P&G? Seed oils do not occur in nature, they are manufactured. Do you want to shove it down your gut until good enough studies prove it's safe or unsafe? Not me! Vegetable oils. Good history here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uqj35nHB0g&t=749s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uqj35nHB0g&t=749s This doctor looks into numerous studies in this lecture, but fats and seed oils are covered from 749s as linked and the next ~25 minutes. Its part 1 of 3 lectures. Highly recommend

amelius 4y ago

Posted this (about externally stimulating the vagus nerve) a while back because it looked interesting: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201907/vagus-nerve-stimulation-the-outer-ear-takes-center-stage https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201... I bought the equipment to try this myself (basically a TENS device and some electrodes), but have been too afraid to apply it :/

exmadscientist 4y ago
You probably already know this, but for the benefit of others: it is very possible to kill yourself if you do this wrong. The vagus nerve (or its mirror on the opposite side of your face, I forget, it's been a while since I worked on this and I've never particularly wanted to revisit it) is involved in pacing your heart. Screw it up and you can end up very dead of cardiac arrest. So be careful trying this stuff at home!
- voisin 4y ago
  You can avoid the potential for death by slow exhalations and other breathing techniques that have been shown to stimulate the vagus nerve.
  - austinjp 4y ago
    Oh boy. No. Slowing your breathing is not going to protect against the effects of electrically stimulating the vagus nerve. Whether or not the TENS approach to vagus nerve simulation is effective or not, please don't believe this will somehow help.
    - abnry 4y ago
      I think the advice was to forgo TENS in favor of breathing, not to mitigate adverse effects of TENS with breathing.
      - austinjp 4y ago

fernly 4y ago

> Both Galvani and SecondWave expect to announce first-in-human data within the next year. In other words, this is vaporware as yet.

HlessClaudesman 4y ago

A family member of mine has a Vagal Nerve Stimulator implant. It hasn't cured his epilepsy, but so far no arthritis (fingers crossed emoji). https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/about-epilepsy/treatment/vagus-nerve-stimulation https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/about-epilepsy/treatment/vagu...

amai 4y ago

You don't need a machine to stimulate your vagus-nerve: Meditation, Massage, Exercise, Music and Cold-Water immersion can do that, too: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/vagus-nerve-stimulation/ https://health.clevelandclinic.org/vagus-nerve-stimulation/