RESUME OF ARTICLE

PSYCHOLOGY TODAY

Kill The Messenger

       by - Lauren F. Friedman (page 38)

For years, rheumatoid arthritis left the patient, a Bosnian man, with cripplig pain in his hands, wrists, elbow, and legs. Just eight weeks after a surgeon implanted a small device in his neck, the pain was alleviated and the man was again driving a delivery truct and performing manual labor. In the past few years, researcher have begun to develop a clear picture of the connection between the nervous system and the immune system that will have a profound effect on how we understand and treat a wide variety of ills. Arthritis a difficult to manage disease with inflammatory and auto immune components is an obvious target.

Some Inflammation in response to injury is normal. When you stub a toe or burn a finger, it's part of the body's healing process. But sometimes the immune system overreacts and there is too much inflammation. In rheumatoid arthritis, immune cells collect in the body's joint's, causing pain and reduced mobility. In a person suffering from arthritis, those signals misfire. Nobody is quite sure why. Unchecked inflammation is also implicated in heart disease, diabetes, depression, and digestive syndromes.

Doctor's standard plan of attack involves suppressing the immune system with a barrage of expensive, often toxic drugs that leave patients virtually unprotected from ordinary pathogens. Further studies are exploring wheter less invasively by stimulating branches of the vagus nerve in the ear, for example. device that target the vagus nerve are already FDA approved for the treatment of epilepsy and depression, but years of testing will be needed before they are widly available for rheumatoid arthritis and related ailments.

Vocab :

1. Surgeon

2. Profound

3. Inflammatory

4. Barrage

5. Disease

6. Involves

7. Further

8. Branches

9. Ailment

10. Pathogens

11. Overreacts

12. Pain

13. Labor

14. Approved

15. Nerve

16. Reduced

17. Suffering

18. Misfire

19. Unchecked

10. Crippling