Chronic liver disease, or cirrhosis, is frequently brought on by extreme alcohol misuse and can be fatal.
Additionally, it is rife with severe symptoms that can negatively affect the quality of life for individuals who have it.
“Patients with cirrhosis experience a multitude of challenges, like poor sleep patterns, frailty and muscle cramps,” said Elliot Tapper, M.D., a hepatologist and associate professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine. “And even though they are suffering, patients don’t always tell their providers that they’re experiencing muscle cramps.”
Interestingly, regardless of the severity of their disease, two out of every three people with cirrhosis have some form of muscle cramp.
Dr. Tapper’s study found muscle cramps had the greatest impact on cirrhosis patients’ quality of life. With limited treatments, researchers explored pickle juice’s effects. The study, involving 82 patients, showed its acidic brine could relieve cramps. Participants drank either pickle juice or tap water, revealing potential benefits for cirrhotic cramps.
After that, during the research window, the patients were instructed to note the time, place, and length of their muscle cramps.
Additionally, when their cramping bouts started, they were told to take a tiny sip of tap water or one tablespoon of pickle juice.
“We also conducted follow-up assessments with our patients, in which a text service sent them automated messages on a pre-set schedule to determine cramp frequency and severity,” said Tapper. “This method also assessed how frequently they were consuming tap water or pickle juice, per the study’s guidelines.”
By lessening the intensity of muscle cramping, the researchers discovered that pickle juice outperformed tap water.
“More patients in the pickle juice arm reported that their cramps were stopped by the intervention – 69% compared to 40% in the tap water arm,” said Tapper. “But the pickle juice didn’t improve overall quality of life, maybe because it couldn’t prevent the cramps.”
According to Tapper, pickle juice is a “low-cost, widely available and safe first-line therapy for cirrhotic cramping” in comparison to other current treatments for muscle cramps.
