Got rheumatoid arthritis? Get rid of your cigarettes. New research suggests that your aching joints will thank you for it.
For years, scientists have known that smoking increases a person’s risk for developing this inflammatory condition, which causes pain, swelling and stiffness in the joints.
Studies also indicated that tobacco smoke increases the severity of the disease in those who have it.
Now comes the first solid evidence that kicking the habit may actually help arthritis sufferers control their disease.
Rheumatoid arthritis patients who stop smoking “may see an improvement in the number of joints that hurt them every day and in how they feel overall,” said Dr. Mark C. Fisher, leader of the new study in a written statement. The results were presented recently at the Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in San Francisco.
Compared with rheumatoid arthritis patients who were still smoking, those who had recently quit had fewer measures of active disease, researchers determined. Their joints were not as tender or swollen, and levels of C-reactive protein – a measure of inflammation in the body – were also much lower.
The results, they believe, suggest that stopping smoking can lessen rheumatoid arthritis symptoms “over and above current medical treatment.”
Of course, there are myriad other benefits to giving up smoking. Cigarette smoke – including secondhand smoke – has been linked to more than a dozen of the health conditions measured by the Navigenics genetic risk assessment, including multiple sclerosis, breast cancer and heart attacks.
That’s not all. I recently blogged about how smoke can hinder memory and cognition, possibly setting up smokers for Alzheimer’s disease.
The important thing to remember is that many of these studies found it is never too late to stop smoking. Don’t kick yourself for having started in the first place. Just be sure to kick the habit.