A new study adds to the strong evidence that smoking can cause serious rheumatic diseases. Not least for people with an increased hereditary risk for any of these diseases, stopping smoking – or ideally never starting to smoke – is a very important preventive measure.
The results show that smoking or a history of smoking is more common in people with SLE. In women who had previously smoked, the risk of SLE was almost twice as high as in women who had never smoked. Among men, an increased risk of SLE was also seen among those who smoked.
In Sweden, there are around 5,000 people with SLE and 400 people get sick every year. The disease is significantly more common in women than in men. Fatigue, fever, weight loss, joint pain, muscle pain, tendon inflammation, sun sensitivity, hair loss and kidney problems are some common symptoms. Skin rashes are also common and lupus erythematosus means “red wolf bite” and refers to the butterfly-like rash over the nose and cheeks that affects many SLE patients.
Significantly increased risk also for rheumatoid arthritis
SLE is one of several inflammatory rheumatic diseases that smoking has been shown to contribute to. At the rheumatology clinic at Karolinska University Hospital in Solna, researchers have studied the connections between heredity and environmental factors such as smoking in, among other things, rheumatoid arthritis and SLE. The results clearly show that smoking can be a strong contributory factor to the diseases. One third of the most serious cases of rheumatoid arthritis would never have occurred if the patient had not smoked. People with a hereditary predisposition to the disease can increase their risk of developing the disease by up to 40 times by smoking. In addition, the effect of drugs for rheumatoid arthritis is greatly reduced by smoking. Smoking cessation is an important part of the treatment for smoking patients at the clinic.
