Norfolk and Denmark were joined together by a strip of forested land, now the Dogger Bank, until it was flooded by melting icecaps 10,000 years ago. Thousands of years later East Anglia was invaded regularly by Vikings, who were desperate for arable land. Local village names, and even some of the region’s old family names, reflect a Viking influence.

Denmark and Norfolk still share bitter winter north winds and some mythology. The two places also have, or did when I was in practice in East Norfolk, a common interest in trotting races.

In these races, horses are attached to a sulky – a two-wheeled carriage, which is raced Ben Hur-style around an oval track. I was reminded of this link recently by Professor Kaj Winther, of the University of Copenhagen, when he described – at a meeting in Barcelona of Eular, the European League against Rheumatoid Arthritis – the efficacy of LitoZin in treating arthritis in trotting horses.

Professor Winther is a bio-chemist, a farmer and a trotting-race enthusiast. Sometimes the joints of his and his competitors’ trotters begin to show signs of arthritis after about three years of thundering around tight bends on the tracks. This type of racing puts a strain on their leg joints, but fortunately Professor Winther has an answer: he is working on LitoZin, a standardised rosehip preparation made from dogrose hips and their seeds.

Having discovered its efficacy in human beings, he started to give LitoZin to the trotting horses. After a time he noticed that their joints became less inflamed and swollen and their gait returned to normal. Their temperament also improved.

Rosehips and their seeds contain an antioxidant that has an antiinflammatory effect. It has been shown that reduced inflammation in human joints can be confirmed by a decreased level of Creactive protein in the patient’s blood. This protein is a marker for the amount of inflammation that a person, horse or, incidentally, dog, is suffering.

Professor Winther’s farm is guarded by Broholmer dogs whose leg joints, like those of many large breeds, tend to develop osteoarthritis. As his guard dog has responded to LitoZin, his department in Copenhagen now plans to run a trial with dogs.

Although rosehip syrup contains vitamin C in such quantities that it was taken by ships’ crews to keep scurvy at bay, it is not this that has the antiinflammatory properties. The work of Professor Winther in Copenhagen and Professor Stefan Willich, from the Charité University Medical Centre in Berlin, shows that the effectiveness of LitoZin is likely to stem from GOPO, a fatty acid. Rose hips also contain vitamins A, B1, 2 and 3, vitamin K, flavonoids, polyphenols, volatile oils and tannins.

The original double-blind randomised Danish trial tested LitoZin on patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, whereas the Professor’s horses and dogs had osteoarthritis. Rather to the researchers’ surprise, they found that their patients noticed a reduction in joint pain, stiffness and swelling with a subsequent increase in movement. LitoZin must be taken for some months before its full effect is clear.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that affects nearly one in 100 of Britain’s adult population. Three times more women than men are affected.

People of any age can develop it but it usually begins between 40 and 60. It destroys cartilage in the joints and later damages bone, causing pain, inflammation and swelling. It also creates flu-type symptoms that make patients feel persistently tired, losing appetite, weight and muscle bulk.

Osteoarthritis is the slow destruction of the joint by wear and tear. It tends to run in families and is more likely to affect any joint subjected to excessive exercise.

LitoZin can be used as a supplement to standard antiarthritic treatments. Rheumatoid arthritis is usually treated with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs and, if these are ineffective, disease-modifying drugs such as methotrexate. There is also a new group of disease-modifying drugs known as the biologics.

The rose hips used for the Danish study were picked on the island of Langeland, birthplace in 1805 of Hans Christian Andersen. But their effectiveness against arthritis is no fairytale.

LitoZin is available from Boots and other chemists.

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