Sibling’s Rheumatoid Arthritis – A Risk for Acute Coronary Syndrome

Siblings of people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are at an increased risk of acute coronary syndrome, research finds. Patients with rheumatoid arthritis and their siblings are more likely to suffer from acute coronary syndrome respectively than matched comparators.

Highlights:

Having siblings with rheumatoid arthritis increases the risk for acute coronary syndrome.
This provides evidence of shared susceptibility between rheumatoid arthritis and acute coronary syndrome.
Efforts to bring down cardiovascular diseases must go beyond rheumatoid arthritis disease control.

An increased risk of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is observed in individuals who have siblings with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to the European League Against Rheumatism.

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects a person's joints, causing pain and disability. It can also affect internal organs. RA is more common in older people, but there is also a high prevalence in young adults, adolescents and even children, and it affects women more frequently than men.

Rheumatoid Arthritis - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, FAQs
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease that causes pain, swelling, stiffness and loss of function in the joints.

‘Having siblings with rheumatoid arthritis may be a risk for acute coronary syndrome.’

"We welcome these results as they contribute to our understanding of cardiovascular risk in patients with rheumatoid arthritis," said Professor Thomas Dörner, Chairperson of the Abstract Selection Committee, EULAR. "This is important because cardiovascular disease is the main driver for the increased morbidity and mortality seen in patients."

ACS is an umbrella term used to describe a range of conditions associated with the sudden, reduced blood flow to the heart such as a heart attack or unstable angina. Recent studies have demonstrated that severity of RA disease is associated with the risk of ACS, suggesting that it is the RA disease itself contributing to the excess risk.

A recently published report demonstrated that despite more efficient control of inflammation in RA during recent years, the excess risk for ACS among patients with RA compared to the general population remains elevated.3 This suggests there may be a shared susceptibility between the two conditions. To examine this, study authors investigated the risk of ACS in siblings of individuals with RA. If there were shared susceptibility between the two conditions, non-RA siblings would also have an increased risk of ACS due to their similar genetic set-up and background.

Diet, Nutrition and Supplements for Osteo-Arthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis patients should consume a diet rich in natural antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients and avoid foods like sugar, saturated fats, and trans fatty acids.

"Our results provide evidence of shared susceptibility between RA and ACS," said Dr Helga Westerlind, Karolinska Institutet (study author). "Although the nature of this needs to be further investigated, we believe that to bring down the cardiovascular risk in patients with RA, cardio-preventive measures must go beyond optimized RA disease control."

Results showed that patients with early RA and their siblings were 44 percent and 23 percent more likely to suffer from an ACS event than matched comparator subjects from the general population. A direct comparison of patients with RA to their siblings demonstrated that those with RA had a 19 percent higher risk of ACS than their siblings.

Physiotherapy for Arthritis
Physiotherapy enables patients with debilitating disease to regain loss of function in their muscles, and joints. Physiotherapy for rheumatoid arthritis involves electrostimulation and hydrotherapy.

This Swedish Rheumatology Quality (SRQ) register is linked to the Swedish Multigenerational Register, Patient Register, the Cause of Death register, and the Total Population Register. Through this, investigators identified 7,492 patients with RA from the SRQ (1996-2015) who had 10,671 full siblings, the patients with RA were matched for age and gender with 35,120 comparator subjects along with their 47,137 full siblings.

References:

OP0136 Siblings of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis are at Increased Risk of Acute Coronary Syndrome - ( http://ard.bmj.com/content/77/Suppl_2/119.1)

Tests for Rheumatoid Arthritis
Are you experiencing pain in the joints? You might have Rheumatoid arthritis, a condition affecting joints and results in pain and joint deformities. It is diagnosed by radiology and blood tests.