Health

Why Does Gold Heal?

Gold salts and arthritis

By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

24th of October 2007, 10:48 GMT

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Gold can heal, only that you must know how to handle it. Physicians first used injections of gold salts in the early 1900s, as they were used to relieve arthritis causing pain and swelling. But this came with severe side effects: besides taking effect months later, the gold shot provoked rashes, mouth sores, kidney damage and sometimes impaired bone marrow's function of delivering new blood cells.

Drugs like methotrexate and others were preferred instead of gold salts, which

are now prescribed as the last resort.

"We shouldn't dismiss gold salts so quickly. We scientists have really never understood why gold works. Now that we have a better handle on its action, we may be able to use that mechanism to create new and better gold-like drugs to treat arthritis." said senior author Dr. David Pisetsky, chief of the division of rheumatology and immunology in the department of medicine at Duke.

Pisetsky's team comprising researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden focused on HMBG1, a molecule which causes inflammation, triggering rheumatoid arthritis. HMBG1 has a dual behavior.

"Inside the nucleus, HMGB1 is a key player in transcription, the process that converts genetic information in DNA to its RNA equivalent. But when HMGB1 is released from the cell - either through normal processes or cell death - it becomes a stimulus to the immune system and enhances inflammation. Interestingly, HMGB1 is not produced evenly throughout the body. There is an unusually high amount of it in the synovial tissue and fluid around the joints - where arthritis occurs." said Pisetsky.

The team induced HMGB1 release by mouse and human immune system cells, then injected and applied gold salts. Gold impeded HMGB1 going out of the nucleus, lowering the reaction of the body's immune system and the inflammation.

"Basically, keeping HMGB1 corralled inside the nucleus is a good thing, when it comes to arthritis. Gold inhibits the release of HMGB1 by interfering with the activity of two helper molecules that ease HMGB1's release from the cell, interferon beta and nitric oxide. Now that we have identified at least one of the ways gold can help arthritis sufferers, perhaps we can use that knowledge to build new and safer-acting, gold-based treatments. Additional studies need to be done to find out if the same mechanism is active in animals and people and not just in laboratory studies," said Pisetsky.

TAGS:

gold | inflammation | pain | arthritis

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