Lupus is a poorly understood autoimmune disorder, afflicting roughly 1.4 million Americans, according to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Because lupus is very difficult to treat, many patients turn to alternative treatments, such as dimethyl sulfoxide. However, DMSO is not currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for lupus. As with any health supplement, consult your doctor before using DMSO.
DMSO Treatment
Although some unscrupulous manufacturers may market DMSO as a treatment for lupus, laboratory studies of DMSO have not found clear beneficial effects of DMSO on systemic lupus. That includes a study conducted on mice, published in 1983 in the "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences." Due to a lack of promising results, DMSO has not been widely studied as a treatment for lupus in humans.
Interstitial Cystitis
Patients with lupus frequently develop a painful bladder condition known as interstitial cystitis, sometimes referred to as lupus cystitis. As of 2011, treating interstitial cystitis was the only FDA-approved medical use of DMSO, and DMSO has been shown to successfully treat interstitial cystitis in patients with lupus, reports a study published in the February 1984 issue of the journal "Urology."
Anti-inflammatory
DMSO is thought to possess anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, which is why researchers suspected it might possibly treat lupus. In laboratory studies, DMSO reduced several markers of inflammation in human intestinal cells growing in a petri dish, according to a study published in the October 2011 issue of "Toxicology Letters." Additional research is needed to understand these potential anti-inflammatory properties of DMSO.
Related Conditions
Scleroderma is an autoimmune condition related to lupus. When applied as a skin cream, DMSO appears to reduce some of the symptoms affecting the skin in scleroderma, but these results vary from person to person, reports an article published in 1985 in the journal "Reviews in Clinical and Basic Pharmacology." The FDA does not support using DMSO as a skin cream, and any health products you find for sale that contain DMSO are unregulated and may contain potentially harmful impurities.
References
- "Urology"; Successful Treatment of Lupus Erythematosus Cystitis with DMSO; JR Sotolongo et al.; February 1984
- International Painful Bladder Foundation: Painful Bladder Syndrome/Interstitial Cystitis and Associated Disorders
- "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences"; The Effects of Chronic DMSO Administration on the Spontaneous Development of Autoimmune Disease in NZB, BXSB, and MRL/Lpr Strain Mice; JL Morton et al.; 1983
- "Toxicology Letters"; Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) Attenuates the Inflammatory Response in the in Vitro Intestinal Caco-2 Cell Model; Sylvie Hollebeech et al.; October 2011
- "Reviews in Clinical and Basic Pharmacology"; Medical Use of Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO); BN Swanson; 1985
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Sulfur; Steven D. Ehrlich et al.; May 2009
