Arthritis affects more than 20 million Americans. The suffering pain occurs day in and out, but relief might be in sight - perhaps in an orchard near you.
Arthritis patient Kim Adair fights a daily battle with the aches and pains of arthritis.
"With 10 being the worst, I would say it's about a seven or eight," said Adair.
But she recently found relief in a study at Baylor on the pain-relieving properties of cherries.
"They have a lot of the same properties that common anti-inflammatory medicines like ibuprofen or naproxen will have," said rheumatologist Dr. John Cush.
Kim took gel caps containing cherry extract.
"I think about maybe three months, I didn't notice any pain at all," Adair said.
"Overall, about five out of six patients did very well in the study," Cush said.
There is another possible benefit of treating pain with cherries. Many patients like the fact that they're natural and might keep them off prescription pain-killers, which can have side effects.
As soon as the study ended and Adair stopped taking the gel caps her aches and pains returned.
"I'd get ready to get out of the car and my husband would say get out of the car!" Adair said.
So, she started eating cherries and drinking cherry juice.
"There has been a big difference," Adair said.
A larger study is now underway. But Adair is already convinced.
"When I'm stress free and pain free, I'm very happy," she said.
Cherries might at least control the pain. This study was funded by the Baylor Healthcare System. It is a pilot study that has not been published.
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Women are less likely to receive a liver transplant, and thus more likely to die. The process to allocate donor livers was redone in 2002 to eliminate gender and race disparity. Prior to 2002, Black and female patients were waiting longer for transplants.
Doctors at Duke looked at the nations new system and found women are still less likely to receive a transplant. Doctors say it's difficult to explain why gender disparity still exists.
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Encouraging news from several of the country's leading cancer organizations: it shows a drop in both death rates and diagnoses for all cancers. Cancer rates have been decreasing over the past 10 years. It's the first time there's been a drop in the rate in which new cancers are diagnosed. That's in both men and women.
This is due to a drop in the most common cancers like lung, colon and prostate cancer in men and breast and colon cancer in women.