Smoking: Women who experience more trauma smoked more. “Compared with women with <4 PTSD symptoms, women with ≥4 PTSD symptoms were also more likely to report >10 pack years of smoking,” researchers observed.
However, given the data analysis, smoking did not qualify as a confounder or mediator of RA risk. Additionally, “the HR for the risk of RA among women with ≥4 PTSD symptoms was similar to the HR for the risk of RA among women with ≥4 PTSD symptoms in the total study population, adjusted for smoking.”
Researchers conclude their article by recommending more research to determine the mechanisms underlying the association between PTSD and risk for RA, as well as further examination of how behaviors (e.g., alcohol consumption and obesity) affect this association.
Lee YC, Agnew-Blais J, Malspeis S, et al. Post-traumatic stress disorder and risk for incident rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2015 Aug 3. doi: 10.1002/acr.22683. [Epub ahead of print]
