“Osteoarthritis can’t be cured with fish oil, vitamin Dâ€
- March 17, 2016, 10:23 am
- Education News
- 151 Views
HQ City Desk
QUETTA: Studies by researchers have shown that popularly held notions about fish oil and vitamin D as treatment for knee osteoarthritis are not correct.
The Australian team from the University of Tasmania’s Menzies Institute found that vitamin D and fish oil, both widely used to slow knee cartilage loss and reduce inflammation, had no distinguishable impact on knee osteoarthritis, Xinhua news agency reported.
Knee osteoarthritis affects about 10 percent of men and 13 percent of women over the age of 60. Apart from joint-replacement surgery and general pain killers, there is no medical cure for the chronic disease.
In the study, published in the world-renowned Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Thursday, the Australian experts divided a group of 413 sufferers in half and prescribed the first group vitamin D tablets and the other a placebo.
After two years, the researchers re-examined the participants and found no discernible difference in knee degeneration between the groups.
“This data suggests a lack of evidence to support vitamin D supplementation for slowing disease progression or reducing knee pain in osteoarthritis,†Ding Changhai, study’s lead author, said on Thursday.
“Our study is the largest in the world to examine the potential effect of vitamin D supplementation on knee osteoarthritis,†he added.
