Rheumatologist Dr. Liam Martin has treated all sorts of painful joint and muscle problems in his patients over the past 20 years.
One of the most interesting for him is fibromyalgia, the unexplained chronic pain condition that affects an estimated 2%–4% of the population. The vast majority of victims are women. Fibromyalgia continues to baffle scientists, doctors, and patients because it doesn’t have a pathological pathway; that is, x-rays and blood tests don’t reveal any abnormalities.
Recently, Dr. Martin completed an AHFMR-supported research project that assessed the role of exercise in the management of fibromyalgia. The results were encouraging. Patients who participated in a specially designed exercise program, with or without an education component, reported an improvement in their symptoms.As the exercise project was drawing to a close, Dr. Martin had a conversation that laid the groundwork for a new avenue of study of fibromyalgia. His colleague, attention deficit disorder (ADD) specialist and Heritage researcher Dr. Bonnie Kaplan, related that one of her associates had reported relief from fibromyalgia after taking a particular nutritional supplement that was being studied in attention deficit disorder. Intrigued, Dr. Martin and Dr. Kaplan decided to test the product on fibromyalgia patients in a research study.
Project make up
The project is a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, meaning that neither the researchers nor the study volunteers know whether the product or the placebo is being given. The volunteers have to meet the criteria for fibromyalgia as formulated by the American College of Rheumatology. The researchers hope to enroll a total of 120 patients from the Calgary area in the two-year study. “A 20% improvement would be considered positive results,” he says, adding that patient questionnaires will be the main tool used to assess improvement.
“The reason we started to work with this supplement is because people came to us reporting relief when they used it. Our goal is to try and determine if it does indeed work and then identify the active ingredients are that are helping,” says Dr. Martin. He can’t name the product but does say the nutriceutical company is a reputable one and that the supplement has small amounts of minerals and anti-oxidants, although it’s “more than a multivitamin.”
Dr. Liam Martin is a rheumatologist and a researcher whose project on fibromyalgia is supported by the Health Research Fund, which is administered by AHFMR on behalf of Alberta Health and Wellness.