Vidcast: https://youtu.be/jYta_STVrhg

I hate to be a nag, but a new study from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital now adds avoiding arthritis to the already long list of reasons to quit smoking or never start. 

The researchers looked at data from nearly a quarter million women participating in the Brigham’s Nurse’s Study and focused in on the nearly 1500 with so-called rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  Compared with non-smokers, smokers were 47% more likely to have developed RA.  The more packs per day that they smoked, the higher the risk.

Smokers with RA who quit for good showed a reduction in arthritis risk after 5 years and a substantial 37% risk reduction by 30 years.   The risk improvement was most notable for those with auto-antibodies, so-called seropositive RA.

Here’s one more reason to avoid smoking.   The more we learn, the longer the list becomes.

#smoking #arthritis #healthnews

Xinyi Liu, Sara K. Tedeschi, Medha Barbhaiya, Cianna L. Leatherwood, Cameron B. Speyer, Bing Lu, Karen H. Costenbader, Elizabeth W. Karlson, Jeffrey A. Sparks. Impact and timing of smoking cessation on reducing risk for rheumatoid arthritis among women in the Nurses’ Health Studies. Arthritis Care & Research, 2019; DOI: 10.1002/acr.23837