Search resultsAssociations of smoking and alcohol consumption with disease activity and functional status in rheumatoid arthritis
Title
Associations of smoking and alcohol consumption with disease activity and functional status in rheumatoid arthritis
Publication type
Journal Article
Year of Publication
2014
Authors
Journal
Journal of Rheumatology
Volume
41
Issue
1
Pagination
24 - 30
Date published
2014
ISBN
0315162X (ISSN)
Keywords
Adult, Aged, alcohol consumption, Alcohol Drinking, Arthritis, Rheumatoid, article, C reactive protein, cohort analysis, controlled study, correlation analysis, disease activity, disease association, disease duration, disease modifying antirheumatic drug, Disease Progression, epitope, Female, functional status, Gene-Environment Interaction, health status, HLA DRB1 antigen, HLA shared epitope, human, Humans, major clinical study, male, methotrexate, Middle Aged, Modified health assessment questionnaire, named inventories, questionnaires and rating scales, nonsteroid antiinflammatory agent, observational study, Physical Examination, prednisone, priority journal, Prospective Studies, prospective study, protein blood level, protein function, questionnaire, rheumatoid arthritis, Severity of Illness Index, smoking
Abstract
Objective. To investigate the associations of smoking and alcohol consumption with disease activity and functional status in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods. We conducted a prospective study consisting of 662 patients with RA who were followed up to 7 years from the Brigham and Women's Hospital Rheumatoid Arthritis Sequential Study. Smoking and alcohol consumption were assessed through yearly questionnaires. The disease activity and functional status were measured annually by the Disease Activity Score examined in 28 commonly affected joints using C-reactive protein (DAS28-CRP3) and the Modified Health Assessment Questionnaire (MHAQ). Linear mixed models were developed to assess the longitudinal effects of smoking and alcohol consumption on DAS28-CRP3 and MHAQ after adjustment for potential confounders. The HLA-DRB1 shared epitope (HLA-SE) by smoking and alcohol interactions were also evaluated in the analysis. Results. The median followup time of the cohort was 4 years. Current smoking was not associated with DAS28-CRP3 in our study, but was associated with a higher MHAQ than nonsmokers with seropositive RA (p = 0.05). Alcohol consumption showed an approximate J-shaped relationship with MHAQ, with the minima occurring at 5.1-10.0 g/day. Compared to no alcohol use, alcohol consumption of 5.1-10.0 g/day was associated with a significant decrease of MHAQ (p = 0.02). When stratified by HLA-SE, the effect of alcohol consumption appeared to be stronger in HLA-SE-positive RA than HLA-SE-negative RA. Conclusion. We found that current smoking was associated with a worse functional status, while moderate alcohol consumption was associated with a better functional status in RA. Replications of these findings in other prospective studies are needed. The Journal of Rheumatology Copyright