What else do they do?
Often it’s difficult to say for
sure. Most home remedies
haven’t yet been tested to
see if they provide more
relief than the placebo effect,
the real and measurable
improvement you might get
from any treatment you
expect will help.
The fact is, controlled trials
comparing treatments to
placebos are expensive. Drug
companies have no reason to
sponsor them for substances
they aren’t able to patent.
And although companies
selling traditional medicines
must show Health Canada that their
products are rooted in long-standing
custom, extensive scientific research
isn’t required to support their health
claims. “What’s really needed,” says
Heather Boon, a professor at the Uni-
versity of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty
of Pharmacy, “is quality scientific
research to help us understand what
works, what doesn’t and what might
interact with other medications.”
The following remedies meet two
criteria: first, they’re unlikely to cause
harm, which unfortunately can’t be
said for everything “natural” or folk-
loric. Second, thanks to the curiosity of
government and university research-
ers, there’s some peer-reviewed evi-
dence backing them up. In other words,
they may well be worth a shot!
GAMMA LINOLENIC ACID
(GLA) FOR RHEUMATOID
ARTHRITIS
GLA is a specific type of omega-6 fatty
acid with anti-inflammatory proper-
ties. It’s found in various plant-seed
oils, including evening-primrose oil,
borage-seed oil and blackcurrant-seed
oil, any of which you can take by swal-
lowing a spoonful of liquid—or cap-
sules, if slick textures aren’t your thing.
These oils “probably improve [rheu-
matoid arthritis] pain, may improve
function and probably do not increase
unwanted side effects,” according to a
review of the evidence prior to 2011.
The ideal dose has not been deter-
mined, but trials have safely used
amounts ranging from 525 milligrams
to 2,800 milligrams of GLA per day.rd.ca 83