Dr. Jeffrey P. Hendricks of Biogenesis Medical Center in Landrum recently received official patent protection for a gold glove designed to be used in the treatment of rheumatoid and other autoimmune forms of arthritis. The glove is in patent-pending status at the U.S. patent office.

Hendricks said the glove is designed to delay and possibly to prevent the debilitating and painful joint destruction that occurs in millions of arthritis sufferers each year across the country. In the medical community the benefit of gold as an anti-inflammatory treatment for rheumatoid and other autoimmune arthritis has been established and used for many years, Hendricks said. Gold is given as an injection, which can be quite painful, very expensive, and imprecise, he said, but until now, there has been no available treatment using gold other than by injection.

Hendricks, working with two companies, has worked out a method for hard plating layers of gold at different karat levels (24 karat and 14 karat) onto surgical stainless steel. After the plating was perfected the process of turning stainless steel into a comfortable, flexible, durable, attractive glove was developed using tiny stainless steel “jump rings.”

“The actual material is called chain mail,” Hendricks said. “It feels and looks like the material you see in medieval armor, shark bite suits or butcher gloves.… It is our opinion that this will do more in the long term to protect the hands than gold rings or pharmaceuticals.  It can be worn at night and during the day up to continuous wear. We suggest at least 12 hours or more based on our current and past clinical observations and feel that the more they are worn, the more beneficial they will be.”

For more information, contact Biogenesis at 864-457-4141.