Steroid Injections for Back Pain - No More Effective Than Placebo.

NY TIMES: Steroid Injections for Back Pain - No More Effective Than Placebo. 

A randomized trial of steroid injections for back pain has shown that they are no more effective than a placebo.

Because the long-term benefits of surgery remain unproven and pain medicines often have serious side effects, doctors have increasingly turned to steroid injections to treat lumbosacral radiculopathy, a common cause of back pain. The condition stems from damage to the discs between the vertebrae that often leads to sciatica, numbness or pain in the legs.

Researchers tested 84 adults with back pain of less than six months’ duration, dividing them into three groups. They received either steroids, etanercept (an arthritis medicine) or an inactive saline solution in two injections given two weeks apart.

At the end of one month, they were assessed for pain.

Leg and back pain decreased in all three groups, but there were no statistically significant differences among them. The researchers conclude that steroids may provide some short-term analgesic effect, but that the improvement in all of the patients was mainly due to normal healing.

The lead author, Dr. Steven P. Cohen, an associate professor of anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins, was disappointed with the results but said that he still hopes drugs like etanercept might someday be proven effective. But for now, he said, “the strongest evidence for back pain relief is with exercise.”

The study appears in the April 17 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/for-back-pain-steroid-shots-no-more-effective-than-placebo/

"At Risk From The Womb" - How care for the unborn child affects the rest of their lives.

 Although it has been long presumed, recent studies are coming forth that show that it is more than just nature/nurture that affects the inital and possibly long term health and well being of children, and then adults, and that "...researchers are finding indications that obesity, diabetes and mental illness among adults are all related in part to what happened in the womb decades earlier."

Original Article In NY TIMES found here: At Risk From The Womb

 "One of the first careful studies in this field found that birth weight (a proxy for nutrition in the womb) helped predict whether an adult would suffer from heart disease half a century later.

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