Scientists from the Université Paris-Saclay found that passive smoking during childhood and/or adulthood is associated with increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
The research is published in RMD Open and was conducted by Yann Nguyen et al.
Rheumatoid arthritis, or RA, is an autoimmune and inflammatory disease, which means that your immune system attacks healthy cells in your body by mistake, causing inflammation (painful swelling) in the affected parts of the body.
RA mainly attacks the joints, usually many joints at once.
In the study, the team examined the link between passive smoking and the risk RA in a French study of healthy women.
Self-reported questionnaires were used to assess exposure to passive smoking.
The researchers identified 698 incident cases of RA among 79,806 women. Overall, 13.5 and 53.6 percent of women were exposed to passive smoking in childhood and adulthood, respectively.
The team found passive smoking in childhood and in adulthood was associated with RA risk.
Never smokers with exposure to passive smoking in childhood and/or adulthood had similar absolute risk of RA as that of ever smokers with no passive smoking exposure.
The highest absolute risk was seen for every smoker also exposed to passive smoking.
The team says passive smoking during childhood and/or adulthood was linked to an increased risk of RA, especially among never-smoking women.
If you care about smoking, please read studies that quitting smoking sooner could save your life, and the cause of weight gain after smoking cessation.
For more information about smoking, please see recent studies about smoking linked to depression, and results showing scientists find silent sleep danger for smokers
Copyright © 2022 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
