Rheumatism is still not curable. That’s why many sufferers rely on herbal products for therapy. However, current research on these agents is sobering.
Rheumatism is a generic term for over 100 different rheumatic diseases. In Germany, around 20 million people suffer from such a disease. Most manifest themselves as pain in joints, muscles, tendons or bones. However, some diseases also affect internal organs.
Despite many advances in rheumatism research, there is still no cure for the chronic inflammatory diseases. That’s why many sufferers turn to herbal medicines. However, rheumatism patients benefit little or not at all from the most common herbal remedies. This is the conclusion reached by the Commission for Complementary Medicine and Nutrition of the German Society for Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology (DGRh).
The commission published its recommendations on the use of these complementary healing methods at the German Rheumatology Congress 2024.
For their analysis, the members looked at scientific literature on various herbal medicines – so-called phytotherapeutics – and evaluated their possible applications in rheumatology.
The research focused on the effectiveness of:
The result: According to the commission’s experts, none of the preparations examined in the treatment of rheumatic diseases has shown an effect that justifies their use.
An exception is medical cannabis. Although the effect is too small to generally recommend it for therapy, its use could be justified in individual cases against chronic nerve pain and sleep disorders, the commission said.
“Even though there are reports of anti-inflammatory or immunological effects in laboratory tests on animal models for all plant substances examined, clinically proven benefit is very sparse,” reported commission spokesman Gernot Keyßer.
“The results show: The importance of phytotherapy for the field is low and its use cannot be viewed as risk-free,” summarizes Christof Specker, President of the DGRh.
According to him, the effectiveness of the preparations normally has to be confirmed through clinical studies before approval. However, there is an exception. This is when preparations have been used medically for at least 30 years and are therefore considered “traditional”.
The experts also point out that it is important to coordinate the use of over-the-counter preparations with the treating rheumatologist.