• Question: How long do you think it will take to find a cure for Arthritis?

    Asked by alchemicalmaster to Joanna on 12 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      Hi!

      That’s actually a really important question! Right now I am in Washington DC at an Arthritis conference with hundreds of arthritis scientists. I attended a lecture today that was all about finding a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis (there are lots and lots of different types of arthritis).

      We already have lots of treatments available, but there is not one set treatment. It’s a bit of a guessing game for the doctors whether a patient will respond well to certain the treatment or not. And so lots of cures and new treatments are being developed and in a couple of years I’m sure we will have lots of new treatments for the disease.

      I think that scientists are working on focusing on trying to prevent arthritis rather than cure it. If we can try to screen people who have “arthritis genes” (and so are “at risk” of arthritis), we could try to treat those people before they get any symptoms. In that way we might be able to prevent arthritis all together. This is the ideal future plan but will take many many years. But the important thing to remember is that it will happen one day and we are all working very hard to try to do this as soon as possible 🙂

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