About one in 50 people suffer from rheumatoid arthritis in Britain.. During the two-year trial, the patients have not gone on to the joint damage which would have been expected.Dr Kirwan said they had html been discussing the success of the trial in recent months with colleagues internationally, and Swedish doctors are about to launch a trial using an even lower dose of steroids.While high doses of steroids can html cause heart disease, diabetes, obesity html and thin bones, low doses can cause thinning of design html the skin which makes people bruise easily."There have been some html side effects, but these have been minimal." Dr Kirwan said he believed the low-dose html steroid treatment html en html would be adopted around the world. When Dr Kirwan looked again at the X-rays and re-analysed the data, he found that steroids slowed the progression design of the disease in the joints."These doctors were not looking at preventing the disease, but for methods of relieving the symptoms. What we have done is to establish a low fixed dose of steroids, html which gives relief en from pain in the first few months."Then, instead of increasing the dose when the steroids no long give pain relief, the doctors treat patients html with established drugs to give relief from pain while the fixed-dose steroids continue to prevent damage in the design joints.Most of the design 128 patients in the trial, aged 18 to 70, had advanced disease in html en html their joints which X-rays now show has been halted But a small number were still at the stage of inflammation. The treatment was abandoned.In these early studies, X-rays were taken to monitor the patients' disease. There is nothing to help the underlying disease, which, in about half of html patients, goes on to destroy the lining in the joints causing great pain and leading to osteoarthritis.In the design html Fifties, doctors began to use steroids to treat the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, but, increasingly, high html doses were needed over the months, which themselves caused unacceptable side effects. The glamour lasts en for as long as it takes to walk to the end of the cat walk and back again en and then it is backstage again for another round of hair and make- up.".

BY CELIA HALL Medical Editor Thousands of people who suffer severely from rheumatoid arthritis are set to benefit from a drug treatment, abandoned 30 years ago, which can halt their disease.Researchers are confident that a regular low dose of steroids can stop the progression of the disease in the joints and may even prevent damage from starting.The dramatic results of a two-year study on bone-damage prevention were given yesterday by Dr John Kirwan of Bristol University's Rheumatology Unit in a key paper at the annual meeting of the British Society of Rheumatology in Glasgow.Dr Kirwan and Dr Margaret Byron, of Stoke Mandeville Hospital, developed a strategy of low-dose corticosteroids after a review of steroid treatments over the past 40 years.Dr Kirwan said yesterday that while there were treatments to ease pain from rheumatoid arthritis - inflammation and swelling of the joints - there was no cure. Her mother sent in a picture without her knowledge.Jodie was spotted by photographer Terry O'Neill on holiday in Barbados and has not looked back since joining IMG Models five months ago and being booked by the American fashion photographer, Pamela Hanson."I thought it was such a glamorous thing to do," she said "But it is seriously hard work It drains you and takes all your energy. Nevertheless, Jade and Jodie, with their off-beat English beauty, are not the most likely contenders for the "super-model" league and they have their feet as firmly on the ground as jetting between London, Mexico, New York and Toyko will allow.Jade is still at school studying for her A-levels between modelling assignments - she has taken some essays to write in New York - and Jodie hopes to follow in her polo-playing brother's footsteps and become a professional show jumper.Jade was taken on by Models One after winning a modelling competition on the television programme This Morning. Even then she had not imagined that she would soon be striding down the catwalks of New York.The New York shows have been dominated by British models this week. Jodie Kidd's debut was only last month at the New Generation Show in London.

She epitomises the look for the Nineties, which is not, it would seem, conventionally beautiful. Jade has a strong angular face that can look stark and uncompromising."Make-up artist Lee Piecroft, frosting the model's eye-lids with aubergine glitter before Oscar-dresser Richard Tyler's show, said the key to Jade's success was that: "She is extremely individual and unique-looking, which is what fashion is about at the moment."Already the model has appeared in the pages of American fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar, photographed by David Sims.Both Jade and Jodie have been modelling for less than a year; it is unusual to be in such great demand with so little catwalk experience. From TAMSIN BLANCHARD in New York Two young British models have been causing a stir at New York's autumn- winter collections this week.Jade Parfitt, 16, from Totnes, in Devon, and Jodie Kidd, a 17-year-old from Gloucester, have been booked solidly for shows all week and will be modelling for top designer Calvin Klein.Jade's booker at Models One, Tori Edwards, said: "She's the hottest girl I've ever come across. Yesterday one of the researchers, Sue Campbell, said that almost 50 per cent of travellers now have access to mobile telephones.The latest count of Britain's itinerant population shows that 9,000 of the country's 13,500 caravans are on pitches run by local councils, the remainder being illegally parked in lay-bys or on private property.Professor Phil Thomas, the project director and an authority on civil liberties law, said of the service: "It puts travellers in touch with solicitors willing to act in cases such as evictions, site conditions and planning appeals."Where necessary test cases would be brought and judicial reviews in the High Court sought, he said..