New research has found that rheumatoid arthritis greatly increases your risk of having both a pulmonary embolism and a deep vein thrombosis. This adds to an already extensive list of health concerns associated with rheumatoid arthritis, and has serious implications for the wellness and wellbeing of suffers of the debilitating disease. Arthritis causes swelling and inflammation of the joints, and it is only now that the associated health concerns of this disease are truly coming to light.
In the most recent study, the researchers found that just having the disease put the sufferer at much greater risk of developing a more serious condition such as DVT or PE, which is when the blood causes clots in the veins in the legs or in the lungs, respectively. For the purposes of the study, researchers in Taiwan looked at data taken from over 30,000 patients whose details were in Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database, which was gathered between 1998 and 2008. Those who were suffering from rheumatoid arthritis were directly compared to people who were healthy and of roughly the same age and gender.
Looking at the data, it became evident that those who had RA were over three times as likely to develop DVT as the people who were completely healthy. They also had almost twice the risk of developing PE as the general healthy population. As part of the research, the team also discovered that patients with RA had an increased chance of developing other diseases too, such as hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes, heart failure and fractures of the lower leg. The disease appears to attack the body in more ways than just the obvious inflammation of the joints.
