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Rheumatoid Arthritis Cause
What is the scientific cause for rheumatism?
(12 Jun 2008)
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Scientific Rheumatism Causes
Rheumatism is a mostly out of date term that was once used to describe a variety of problems affecting certain parts of the body — in particular, the heart, the bones, and the lungs. The term was rather vague, and today we know that the conditions and diseases included in its scope were extremely varied in their nature, causes, and treatment, many of them having absolutely nothing to do with other diseases in the group. Today we know that these are all distinct conditions, and we use different, more accurate names to describe each one of them. The term rheumatism is still sometimes used, but more as the name of a group of diseases when referring to a field of research for example, than to refer to a single disease.
Among the health problems that used to be called rheumatism are what we now call osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, fibromylagia, rheumatic fever, and tenosynovitis. Although there are some common factors among all these diseases (mainly the inflammation of the joints as one of the symptoms), the causes vary greatly. For example, rheumatic fever is thought to be related to a streptococcal infection, while rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease and osteoarthritis is to some extent hereditary.
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answered by G M on 12 Jun 2008, 4:55:32
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