Pair of lungs Previous studies have pointed to a connection between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and rheumatoid arthritis, but now a large study has confirmed it.
COPD is a type of lung disease that causes sufferers difficulty in breathing and it is most commonly associated with smoking. Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammation of the joints and surrounding tissues, which causes a range of symptoms, including fatigue and weakness, as well as pain in the joints.
Wanting to definitively ascertain whether the two diseases were linked, researchers from the Sheba Medical Centre, Israel, looked data from 15,766 patients who had RA, as well as 15,340 who did not. What they found was that RA patients were twice as likely to have COPD as the control group. Even once they took into account other factors that can affect people with both RA and COPD, such as smoking, obesity and socioeconomic status, the correlation was still in evidence.
The next step would be to ascertain exactly how or why these two diseases are linked, thereby increasing our understanding of other factors that may increase a person’s likelihood of developing them.
First published June 1, 2011