A drink a day keeps rheumatoid arthritis away?
That is the implication of a new study from Scandinavian researchers published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
The study of more than 2,700 people found that alcohol consumption was linked with a considerably lower risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. And the more alcohol that the study subjects drank, the lower their risk of developing the disease.
Of the study's regular drinkers, the one quarter that consumed the most alcohol, about five drinks or more per week, had their risk for diabetes reduced by 50 per cent compared to the one half of subjects who drank almost no alcohol.
As well, alcohol cut rheumatoid risk among study participants who had both a history of smoking and were carriers of an antibody to a group of proteins that are involved in the development of the disease.
Because smoking is a risk factor for rheumatoid arthritis, the combination of the habit and the genetic predisposition could dramatically increase a person's susceptibility for the illness.
"This highlights the potential role of lifestyle in determining the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, and emphasizes the advice to stop smoking, but not necessarily to abstain from alcohol in order to diminish risk of rheumatoid arthritis," the authors wrote.
The results of the study were the same for both men and women.
Rheumatoid arthritis occurs when the immune system attacks the lining of the body's joints, causing redness, pain and swelling. Symptoms can also affect internal organs such as the eyes, lungs or heart, according to The Arthritis Society of Canada.
The pain and joint stiffness can be debilitating and treatments vary according to the needs of each patient. The disease affects about 300,000 Canadians, and is three times more common in women than in men. A diagnosis can occur at any age, but it most common between the ages of 25 and 50.
In their study, the Swedish and Danish authors say their findings mirror other studies that show that moderate alcohol consumption is linked with a decreased risk of developing cardiovascular disease. However, why this is the case is not yet known. Therefore, the researchers call for further study on alcohol's relationship to the development of inflammatory diseases.
Abstract:
Alcohol consumption is associated with decreased risk of rheumatoid arthritis: results from two Scandinavian case-control studies
H Kallberg, S Jacobsen, C Bengtsson, M Pedersen, L Padyukov, P Garred, M Frisch, E W Karlson, L Klareskog, L Alfredsson
Objectives: To determine the association between risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and alcohol consumption in combination with smoking and HLA-DRB1 shared epitope (SE).
Methods: Data from two independent case-control studies of RA, the Swedish EIRA (1204 cases and 871 controls) and the Danish CACORA (444 cases and 533 controls), were used to estimate ORs of developing RA for different amounts of alcohol consumed.
Results: Alcohol consumption was significantly more common in controls (p,0.05) and dose-dependently associated with reduced risk of RA (p for trend ,0.001) in both studies. Among alcohol consumers, the quarter with the highest consumption had a decreased risk of RA of the order of 40-50% compared with the half with the lowest consumption (EIRA, OR=0.5 (95% CI 0.4 to 0.6); CACORA, OR=0.6 (95% CI 0.4 to 0.9)). For the subset of RA that is seropositive for antibodies to citrullinated peptide antigens, alcohol consumption reduced the risk most in smokers carrying HLA-DRB1 SE alleles.
Conclusions: The observed inverse association between alcohol intake and risk of RA and the recent demonstration of a preventive effect of alcohol in experimental arthritis indicate that alcohol may protect against RA. This highlights the potential role of lifestyle in determining the risk of developing RA, and emphasises the advice to stop smoking, but not necessarily to abstain from alcohol in order to diminish risk of RA. The evidence of potential RA prevention should prompt additional studies on how this can be achieved.
