Smoking Increases Rheumatoid Arthritis Risk

People with a genotype that is linked to rheumatoid arthritis risk (the HLA-DRB1 gene) significantly increase their chance of developing the disease if they smoke. The increased risk, resulting from the combination of the genetic factor and environmental factor, was revealed in a study published in the June 2009 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, analyzed 1,319 rheumatoid arthritis patients and compared them to 943 others chosen from the Swedish national population registry. Results indicated that people who had ever smoked at any point in their lives and were found to have any of the SE (shared epitope) alleles from the HLA-DRB1*04 group were nearly 9 times more likely to have anti-CCP antibody-positive rheumatoid arthritis than those who did not have the alleles.

The association between HLA-DRB1 shared epitope alleles and smoking was previously reported but researchers further investigated the interaction between specific SE alleles and smoking. While there were differences with specific SE alleles, all SE alleles strongly interact with smoking to increase the risk of anti-CCP antibody-positive rheumatoid arthritis. For rheumatoid arthritis patients who were not positive for anti-CCP antibodies, none of the alleles were linked to increased risk of the disease and they did not interact with smoking to increase the risk.

Related Resources:

• What Is Anti-CCP?
• Smoking Doubles Risk of Severe Arthritis
• Smoking Linked to Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Smoking Puffs Up Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis
• HLA-B27 And HLA-DR4: Arthritis and the Genetic Factor

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