Not smoking and keeping a healthy weight, a new trick to optimize the effect of drugs? American and Canadian researchers show in any case that being overweight and smoking can reduce the effectiveness of drug treatments in rheumatoid arthritis. To arrive at these conclusions presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Health Professionals in Rheumatology, the researchers collected data in 19 different centers in Canada.
A total of 1109 patients from the Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort were followed for several years. All saw a rheumatologist every three months for the first year after diagnosis, every six months for the second year and then annually. Each visit was an opportunity to measure symptoms using the DAS (Disease Activity Score) scale, which looks at the number of swollen or tender joints, the level of inflammation revealed by blood test, and the self -evaluation of symptoms by the patient.
Smoking and being overweight make symptoms worse
Results: men, non-smokers, and people of healthy weight had fewer symptoms than others. Conversely, people who smoke and are overweight or obese are those who suffer the most. The good news, however, is that these effects are not seen at the start of treatment or in former smokers who have quit. There would still be time, therefore, at the announcement of the diagnosis, to be taken care of to eliminate these causes of aggravation of the symptoms.
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