50 Fun Facts About Arthritis

Compounds of which precious metal were injected into muscle for decades to slow rheumatoid arthritis?

Gold salts eased inflammation in rheumatoid joints, a treatment known as chrysotherapy. Side effects and slow action cut their use from the 1980s, and the main injectable form was discontinued in 2019.

A badly arthritic skeleton found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in 1908 gave which extinct humans their stooped image?

Neanderthals were pictured slouching for over thirty years after Marcellin Boule rebuilt this old man with bent knees and a curveless spine, errors later blamed partly on his severe osteoarthritis.

Which spoof award honoured Donald Unger, who cracked only his left knuckles for decades to test for arthritis?

The Ig Nobel Prize for medicine went to Unger in 2009. Neither of his hands ever developed arthritis, and a larger study also found no link with knuckle cracking.

Which French Impressionist painted for his last twenty years with rheumatoid arthritis crippling his hands?

Renoir developed the disease around 1892 and worked until his death in 1919. The tale that brushes were strapped to his fingers is false: an assistant placed them in his hand.

Which Founding Father, laid up with gout in June 1776, edited Jefferson's draft Declaration of Independence from home?

Benjamin Franklin was too disabled by gout to attend most Committee of Five meetings, so the draft was sent to him. He made a few small but important changes.

Which tick-borne illness was first identified in 1975 after a cluster of suspected childhood arthritis in Connecticut?

Lyme disease is named after the towns of Lyme and Old Lyme, where doctors first took the children's swollen joints for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Podagra is the medical name for a gout attack in which part of the body, struck in about half of cases?

The big toe is gout's classic target, at the joint where it meets the foot. The pain usually begins during the night and peaks within a day.

Which everyday painkiller, discovered by Stewart Adams at Boots in 1961, was launched as a rheumatoid arthritis drug?

Ibuprofen was first sold as Brufen in the United Kingdom in 1969. Adams had earlier tried the drug on himself to treat a hangover.

Which smooth tissue covering bone ends breaks down in osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis?

Cartilage cushions the joint, and as it is lost the bone beneath is damaged too. Fingertips, thumb bases, the neck and the lower back are among the joints most often affected.

What mistakenly attacks the joints in rheumatoid arthritis, unlike the mechanical wear of osteoarthritis?

The immune system makes rheumatoid arthritis a whole-body disease: besides the joints it can affect the skin, lungs, heart, nerves and blood.

Which painkiller, first made in a pure, stable form at Bayer in 1897, is still used for rheumatoid arthritis and fever?

Aspirin got its trade name in 1899. Chemist Felix Hoffmann later said his father's complaints about a bitter rheumatism drug had prompted the work, though his role is disputed.

Bracelets of which metal, common in jewellery, are worn as a folk remedy for arthritis pain?

Copper bracelets worked no better than look-alike ones in trials, one in osteoarthritis and one in rheumatoid arthritis.

Curcumin, studied as a remedy for osteoarthritis of the knee, is the yellow pigment of which kitchen spice?

Turmeric belongs to the ginger family, and its extracts have only weak evidence of relieving knee osteoarthritis. The pigment was first isolated from its rhizomes in 1815.

Which singer with lupus, a disease that inflames joints, received a kidney from her friend Francia Raisa in 2017?

Selena Gomez revealed her lupus diagnosis in 2015 and later set up a research fund for the disease at the University of Southern California.

Needle-shaped crystals of which waste product settle in joints and trigger the sudden pain of gout?

Uric acid crystallises when levels in the blood stay high. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first described the crystals' appearance in 1679.

Hydroxychloroquine, taken for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, comes from a drug family made to fight which infection?

Malaria is still prevented and treated with the drug where the parasite remains sensitive. For lupus it is considered the first-line treatment.

Which joint did British surgeon John Charnley pioneer replacing, now a routine operation for severe arthritis?

Hip replacement, which Charnley refined by working closely with mechanical engineers, is now one of the most common operations in the world.

Which insect names the red rash across the nose and cheeks seen in lupus, a disease that also inflames joints?

The butterfly rash, which doctors call a malar rash, spreads a wing over each cheek. Joint pain is the complaint that most often sends people with lupus to a doctor.

Which bird gives its name to a rheumatoid arthritis deformity in which a finger's middle joint bends backwards?

Swan neck deformity curves the finger like the bird's neck: the middle joint over-extends while the fingertip joint droops. Injuries can cause it too.

Which habit, acting together with genes, is the most clearly defined environmental risk factor for rheumatoid arthritis?

Smoking roughly triples the risk in some populations compared with never lighting up, and the effect is strongest in men and in heavy users of tobacco.

Which blockbuster drug's brand name stands for human monoclonal antibody in rheumatoid arthritis?

Humira, the antibody adalimumab, was approved in the United States in 2002. It is also used for psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and Crohn's disease.

Which drug, also a cancer chemotherapy agent, is now one of the first-line treatments for rheumatoid arthritis?

Methotrexate, once called amethopterin, is taken in low doses for arthritis. It also treats psoriasis, lupus and Crohn's disease.

Which adrenal hormone, known as Compound E, was first given to rheumatoid arthritis patients at the Mayo Clinic in 1948?

Cortisone eased severe cases when injected in large doses, and within two years Philip Hench and chemist Edward Kendall were honoured in Stockholm for it.

Which thin membrane lining the inside of joint capsules becomes inflamed and thickened in rheumatoid arthritis?

The synovium is rich in small blood vessels that nourish the joint. In rheumatoid arthritis it grows into an invasive layer called pannus that damages nearby tissue.

Which food do doctors name when describing a whole finger swollen along its length by psoriatic arthritis?

Sausage digit is the everyday name for dactylitis, in which an entire digit is inflamed rather than a single joint. It also occurs in ankylosing spondylitis.

At which time of day is the joint stiffness of rheumatoid arthritis usually at its worst, often lasting hours?

Early morning brings a rise in inflammatory signals in the blood, which may explain it. Stiffness from osteoarthritis does not last as long.

On X-rays, the fused vertebrae of advanced ankylosing spondylitis are compared to the stem of which plant?

Bamboo spine appears when the outer fibres of the discs between vertebrae turn to bone, bridging them into one rigid, ridged column.

Rheumatoid arthritis usually appears in which pattern across the body, a clue that helps tell it from osteoarthritis?

Matching joints on both sides of the body are typical of rheumatoid arthritis, though the symmetry may be missing at first. Osteoarthritis and gout are more often lopsided.

Which former world No. 1 tennis player announced in 2018 that she had rheumatoid arthritis?

Caroline Wozniacki learned of the diagnosis shortly before the US Open and said she wanted to become a role model for people with the condition.

In about one in six children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which organs develop an inflammation called uveitis?

The eyes are most at risk in girls under six, and nine in ten chronic cases appear within four years of the arthritis being diagnosed.

Which British monarch, lamed by gout, was carried to a 1702 coronation at Westminster Abbey in an open sedan chair?

Queen Anne suffered what her doctors called gout from at least 1698, and around the court she was moved about in a sedan chair or a wheelchair.

Which Hollywood leading lady of the 1980s began having rheumatoid arthritis symptoms in 1992 while filming Serial Mom?

Kathleen Turner had unexplained pains and fevers for about a year before the diagnosis was made, and the disease seriously restricted her work in the 1990s.

Glucosamine, a supplement widely sold for osteoarthritis, is usually made from the outer skeletons of which animals?

Shellfish shells are the usual raw material, so the supplement may be unsafe for people with seafood allergies. Several clinical bodies advise against taking it for arthritis.

Hyaluronic acid, injected into knees with osteoarthritis, has most commonly been sourced from which part of a rooster?

The comb is a by-product of the meat industry, which made it the usual animal source. The same gel-forming substance is used as a filler for facial wrinkles.

Pseudogout mimics a gout attack, but its joint crystals are a pyrophosphate salt of which mineral?

Calcium pyrophosphate crystals look rhombus-shaped under polarised light, whereas the crystals of true gout are needle-shaped.

Which arthritis painkiller did Merck withdraw from the market in 2004 over raised risks of heart attack and stroke?

Vioxx, the drug rofecoxib, was one of the most widely used medicines ever withdrawn. Merck had withheld information about its risks for more than five years.

Colchicine, described as a gout treatment in the first century AD, is extracted from which flowering plant?

Autumn crocus extract was being used for joint swelling as early as 1500 BC, and an Egyptian medical text of that era, the Ebers Papyrus, describes it.

Which daily medicine, a xanthine oxidase inhibitor, is the generally recommended drug for preventing gout attacks?

Allopurinol was tested early on by Gertrude Elion's laboratory as a way to boost a leukaemia drug. It can safely be continued even during an acute attack.

Gout is more common in people who eat foods high in which compounds, plentiful in liver, anchovies and beer yeast?

Purines are broken down by the body into the waste product that forms gout crystals. Purine-rich vegetables such as beans, peas and spinach are not linked to the disease.

What are the hard bony knobs called that osteoarthritis forms on the finger joints nearest the nails?

Heberden's nodes are named after the physician William Heberden, who died in 1801. Similar knobs on the middle finger joints are called Bouchard's nodes.

Which everyday name is given to osteophytes, the hard outgrowths at the edges of joints with osteoarthritis?

Bone spurs may form as the worn joint tries to make its surfaces fit together better, and they are one of the typical signs of osteoarthritis on an X-ray.

What is the medical term for the crackling or grating felt when a joint with osteoarthritis is moved?

Crepitus happens when roughened surfaces inside the joint grind against one another. In osteoarthritis it is most noticeable in the shoulder and knee.

What are the hard, painless lumps of crystals called that build up around joints in long-standing gout?

Tophi take their name from the Latin for stone. They sometimes break through the skin as chalky white nodules, and extensive ones can erode bone.

Which genetic marker is carried by about nine in ten people who have ankylosing spondylitis?

HLA-B27 is also linked to psoriatic and reactive arthritis, yet only a small fraction of the people who carry it ever develop ankylosing spondylitis.

Which English physician coined the term rheumatoid arthritis in 1859 and first proposed lithium as a gout remedy?

Alfred Garrod had earlier traced gout to a chemical excess in his patients' blood, and he also recommended lithium for mental illness.

Which bacterium is the usual cause of septic arthritis, a joint infection whose onset is usually rapid?

Staphylococcus aureus heads the list of culprits, and its drug-resistant form MRSA accounts for between 5 and 25 percent of cases.

Which British chemist mapped penicillin and insulin despite rheumatoid arthritis that deformed her hands from age 24?

Dorothy Hodgkin struggled even to work the main switch on her X-ray equipment, yet she stayed scientifically active into later years spent largely in a wheelchair.

Which mosquito-borne virus has a Makonde name meaning to become contorted, after the posture its joint pain causes?

Chikungunya was first identified in Tanzania in 1952. Most people improve within a week, but the joint pain can occasionally last for months or years.

Rheumatoid arthritis in the hands ended the operating career of which pioneer of human heart transplants in 1983?

Christiaan Barnard had lived with the disease since 1956, eleven years before he performed the first human-to-human heart transplant in Cape Town.

Which famous Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton is believed to have suffered from gout?

Sue, the star of Chicago's Field Museum, is named after Sue Hendrickson, the fossil collector who found the skeleton in 1990. More than 90 percent of the skeleton by bulk was recovered.