Anti-Rheumatic Rx

van der Heijde et al have published the results of the phase 3 POETYK PsA-1 trial demonstrating that deucravacitinib was superior to placebo in clinical responses, patient-reported outcomes, and structural damage inhibition in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

This pooled meta-analyses (n=197,392) shows that exercise reduced pain versus control immediately after the intervention (SMD −0.59; 95% CI −0.65 to −0.53; P0.001). The benefit held across musculoskeletal, inflammatory, neurologic and cancer pain, and for every modality tested.

The NEJM reports that retatrutide, an investigational incretin agent, was shown to yield up to 25% weight reduction, with subanalyses also showing reduced pain with knee osteoarthritis, and less apnea–hypopnea events in participants with obstructive sleep apnea.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.

At the CCR West 2026 conference in Huntington Beach, California, Dr. Michelle Petri updated her Petri Pearls. Some are derived from new data, while others are from her extensive experience caring for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). As always, her observations and wisdom have

Obesity is an incidental comorbidity in psoriatic arthritis (PsA). It is a modifiable, mechanistically active driver of disease onset, severity, and treatment failure. A new comprehensive review in RMD Open (Madsen et al., 2026) synthesizes 49 studies suggesting that weight management belongs in

The Washington Post published a patient overview on "what Prednisone does to your body".

That promised land of substantive weight loss comes within it the illusion of better disease control and, for inflammatory arthritis patients, the possibility of reducing the burden of regular medicines - often driven by the patient, with or without telling you. It is a dream worth aspiring to

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has published the results of the SUN Project study, showing that long-term adherence to a Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) was associated with a substantially lower risk of incident rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but not psoriasis.