Fasting may have therapeutic value in the treatment of polymyalgia rheumatica. - GreenMedInfo Summary

A 67-year-old woman with proven diagnosis of giant cell arteritis (GCA) and polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) was admitted to stationary treatment twice to receive a complex therapy with methods of natural medicine comprising fasting as its main treatment element. Both times, a discrepancy between the course of markers of the acute phase on the one hand, and subjective as well as objective clinical outcome on the other hand could be observed.This may point to special conditions of this chronic inflammatory disease as compared to e.g.rheumatoid arthritis, but also to specific problems in assessing possible effects of the treatments chosen, particularly fasting therapy, as compared to effects of conventional therapies.