The Rheumatologist reports on new research looking at smoking as a risk for autoimmune diseases.

"During the last decade or so, accumulating data has consistently demonstrated a strong association between cigarette smoking and rheumatoid arthritis risk, particularly for seropositive RA, with an interaction between smoking and underlying genetics," says Medha Barbhaiya, MD, MPH, rheumatologist at HSS.

Using the Nurses’ Health Study, Dr. Barbhaiya found current smoking was strongly related to risk for the subtype of SLE associated with anti-double-stranded DNA+.

"Although further studies are needed in this area, the idea that rheumatic disease may be modifiable by behavior change, such as quitting smoking, may provide hope to patients who otherwise feel resigned there is no way to change their disease risk," Dr. Barbhaiya says.

Read the full article at The-Rheumatologist.org.