Originally published November 3 2005
Weather service now offers an arthritis index to its viewing audience
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
AccuWeather Inc., a weather forecasting service in State College, Pa, has supplemented its weather predictions with an arthritis index intended to help viewers schedule activities around weather that might affect their arthritis.
Here comes the cold, and with it, aching fingers, knees and backs.
But one weather service is hoping that a new warning will keep customers on their toes, or, at least, touching their toes.
Much like allergy forecasts, AccuWeather Inc., a for-profit weather forecasting service in State College, Pa., has added an "arthritis index" to its Web site.
The index started this month online at www.accuweather.com.
The agency looks for ways that weather affects daily life, from frizzy hair to air quality, says Mike Steinberg, senior vice president at AccuWeather.
The index uses different variables, from humidity to change in pressure to temperature.
"The hope is that knowing in advance if the weather is going to make you feel worse or better brings value in preparing medications or planning activities," says Steinberg.
The truth is, weather, particularly barometric pressure, does add aches and pains, but no one is sure why, says Dr. Terence W. Starz, medical director of the Arthritis Foundation in Western Pennsylvania.
The theory is that when the humidity increases or pressure changes - as when it drops during a storm - tissue around the joints swells.
Cold weather doesn't help either, because muscles tighten overall.
As one of Starz's patients once put it, "When the frost is on the pumpkin, the arthritis is back in my joints."
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