New study suggests that taking statins may reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis

10 September 2010 (updated: 12 January 2011)
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'New study suggests that taking statins may reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis' image

People who take cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may be less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis, a new study suggests. Scientists at the Maccabi Healthcare Services Research Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel, looked at data contained in the institute's computerised medical databases.

From data on 1.8 million patients, the researchers identifed 211,627 who were eligible for their investigation on rheumatoid arthritis, and a further 193,770 who were analysed to see if there was any association between statin use and osteoarthritis, a form of degenerative joint disease. During the follow-up period, 2,578 patients developed rheumatoid arthritis and 17,878 were diagnosed with osteoarthritis.

The incidence of rheumatoid arthritis was 51 per cent higher among patients who did not take statins throughout the study period than in patients who took the cholesterol-lowering drugs at least four-fifths of the time.In contrast, the researchers only observed a modestly reduced risk of osteoarthritis among persistent statin users.

Writing in the journal PLoS Medicine, researcher Gabriel Chodick and his colleagues concluded: "The present study demonstrates an association between persistence with statin therapy and reduced risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.

"Larger, systematic, controlled, prospective studies with high-efficacy statins, particularly in younger adults who are at increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis, are needed to confirm these findings and to clarify the exact nature of the biological relationship between adherence to statin therapy and the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis."

A spokeswoman for Arthritis Research UK said: "Our own published research and that of researchers in Japan has shown a modest but significant effect on inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis, and this latest piece of research adds further evidence of this link. "We now need larger clinical trials to confirm further that statins can reduce the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis."

Arthritis Research UK and the British Heart Foundation are jointly funding a multi-centre clinical trial of 4,000 people to find out if statins reduce the risk of patients with rheumatoid arthritis developing cardiovascular problems.