Fatigue can be one of the most difficult symptoms to cope with for people with rheumatoid arthritis and this study found that group cognitive behavioural courses may help. This NIHR-funded study compared six weekly group sessions plus a booster session with a single brief one-to-one meeting. Both groups also received an educational booklet. It took ...

People with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) who receive cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) continue to have lower levels of symptoms over the following two years. Telephone-delivered CBT is particularly effective, with 71% of study participants experiencing a clinically significant improvement in their IBS symptoms. This NIHR-funded study is the 24-month follow-up to an earlier publication of ...

Living with inflammatory bowel disease as a `hidden’ condition can lead to feelings of isolation and exclusion. These experiences are characterised by exhaustion, feelings of damaged body image, loss of control and living with the fear of complications. The condition can be unpredictable and have a profound impact on quality of life, disrupting social relationships ...

It seems safer to reduce the dose of biological drugs, rather than to stop them if people with rheumatoid arthritis and their doctors want to avoid relapse. Stopping these powerful drugs caused the disease to recur in 58% of people compared with 29% who continued them. Reducing the dose also led to more relapses for ...

People with ankylosing spondylitis showed improvement in their symptoms and their ability to perform day-to-day tasks when they did more exercise. Symptom and function scores improved by almost one point on a 10-point scale after 3 to 12 weeks of exercise. Ankylosing spondylitis is a type of arthritis which mainly affects the spine, causing pain, ...

Certain allergenic foods introduced to an infant’s diet while weaning appear to reduce the chance of developing food allergies. This high quality review, including studies published this year, suggests that historical recommendations to delay the introduction of peanut and other allergenic foods to infant child’s diet in the first year of life may have been ...

Biological treatments for moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis appear to reduce fatigue as well as other symptoms. Although existing studies looking at effectiveness have focused on symptoms such as pain, their combined results suggest this additional benefit. Biological treatments work by reducing the joint inflammation and destruction associated with the condition, but to date it ...

Early exposure, up to age five, to peanut products in children with severe eczema or egg allergy appears to induce tolerance that is sustained when peanut products are later avoided, suggesting it is not necessary to keep eating peanuts long term. This trial and its follow up study examined the effect of giving peanut products ...

This review aimed to compare injections of collagenase clostridium histolyticum with standard surgical treatments for Dupuytren’s contracture. Unfortunately existing trials are small and there are no head to head trials of surgery vs collagenase, so it is not possible to determine which therapy is more effective in the short or longer term - nor which ...