Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Oct 24:16:3117-3127.
doi: 10.2147/JMDH.S428948. eCollection 2023.

Integrating Chinese Herbal Medicine into Conventional Care Was Related to Lower Risk of Sarcopenia Among Rheumatid Arthritis Patients: A Retrospective, Population-Based Study

Hsin-Hua Li #  1 , Hanoch Livneh #  2 , Hua-Lung Huang  3 , Yu-Han Wang #  4 , Ming-Chi Lu  5   6 , Wei-Jen Chen  1   4   7   8 , Tzung-Yi Tsai  9   10   11
Affiliations

Integrating Chinese Herbal Medicine into Conventional Care Was Related to Lower Risk of Sarcopenia Among Rheumatid Arthritis Patients: A Retrospective, Population-Based Study

Hsin-Hua Li et al. J Multidiscip Healthc. .

Abstract

Objective: Sarcopenia is a frequently observed comorbidity of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) due to the chronic activation of the innate immune system. Accumulating evidence has indicated that Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) safely suppresses proinflammatory pathways and controls inflammation-associated disease, but its effect in reducing the risk of developing sarcopenia among RA subjects has not been established. We conducted a population-level cohort study to compare the sarcopenia risk in patients with RA who use or do not use CHM.

Methods: Using claims from a nationwide insurance database, we recruited patients with newly diagnosed RA and without sarcopenia between 2002 and 2010. Propensity score matching was applied to randomly select sets of CHM users and non-CHM users to compare the sarcopenia risk until the end of 2013. The risk of new-onset sarcopenia was assessed using the Cox proportional hazards model.

Results: As compared to non-CHM users, those receiving CHM treatment had a lower incidence of sarcopenia (7.69 vs 9.83 per 1000 person-years). CHM was correlated with a decreased chance of sarcopenia after controlling for potential covariates. Notably, use of CHM for more than two years may diminish the risk of getting sarcopenia by about 47% when taken as prescribed. Prescriptions of several herbal formulae may benefit the reduction of sarcopenia risk, such as Yan-Hu-Suo, Bei-Mu, Da-Huang, Huang Qin, Ping-Wei-San (PWS), Shu-Jing-Huo-Xue-Tang (SJHXT) and Chuan-Xiong-Cha-Tiao-San (CXCTS).

Conclusion: This study produced new evidence as it is the first to show that the longer duration of CHM use was correlated to reduced risk of sarcopenia in a dose-dependent manner, implying that CHM treatment could be embraced as a routine care strategy for preventing sarcopenia.

Keywords: Chinese herbal medicine; cohort study; rheumatoid arthritis; sarcopenia.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicting interests in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart for population inclusion criteria.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sarcopenia risk regarding uses of top ten most-used single-herb and multi-herb products among subjects.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. World Health Organization. Musculoskeletal health; 2022. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/musculoskeletal-conditions. Accessed April 13, 2023.
    1. Allaire S, Wolfe F, Niu J, Lavalley MP. Contemporary prevalence and incidence of work disability associated with rheumatoid arthritis in the US. Arthritis Rheum. 2008;59(4):474–480. doi: 10.1002/art.23538 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chen CI, Wang L, Wei W, Yuce H, Phillips K. Burden of rheumatoid arthritis among US medicare population: co-morbidities, health-care resource utilization and costs. Rheumatol Adv Pract. 2018;2(1):i1–i9. - PMC - PubMed
    1. An HJ, Tizaoui K, Terrazzino S, et al. Sarcopenia in autoimmune and rheumatic diseases: a comprehensive review. Int J Mol Sci. 2020;21(16):5678. doi: 10.3390/ijms21165678 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aletaha D, Smolen JS. Diagnosis and management of rheumatoid arthritis: a review. JAMA. 2018;320(13):1360–1372. doi: 10.1001/jama.2018.13103 - DOI - PubMed