RA and General Rheumatic Disease

RA and many other rheumatic diseases involve pain and inflammation that take a big toll on functionality and quality of life.

A 2017 review of scientific literature looked at mud therapy and other similar treatments. It found that they appeared to be at least somewhat effective for:

• Pain
• Function
• Quality of life
• Clinical disease parameters

What's more, mineral-containing mud providing longer lasting results than mud without minerals. Still, researchers said the evidence so far wasn't strong enough to draw firm conclusions and that larger well-designed studies were needed.6

A 2018 review by Italian researchers said balneotherapy appeared to be more beneficial for types of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and enteropathic spondylitis (ES) than for RA. It also said the treatments appeared to be safe, with negative side effects only reported in a few participants.7

A 2019 study shed some light on why these treatments may be effective.8 Participants with RA, AS, and other inflammatory, degenerative diseases took a series of nine mud baths over a three-week period while a control group was given physical therapy.

The mud-bath group had more significant improvements that lasted for at least three months after treatment in:

• Function
• Pain intensity
• Disease activity

The physical-therapy group saw some improvement but less than the mud-bath group.

In addition, researchers discovered the mud-bath group had significant changes in two biomarkers related to inflammation. Levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-1 beta (IL-1ß) dropped while levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin

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