Which Sports/Exercises Are Less Likely To Bother My Arthritis?

— -- Question: How does rheumatoid arthritis affect my risk of developing other disease such as heart disease?

Answer: Rheumatoid arthritis can affect the heart in particular. It can affect the heart in two ways. One, the inflammation can directly affect the valves of the heart or the lining of the heart, called the pericardium. But more importantly, rheumatoid arthritis, by virtue of its production of inflammatory molecules, can make clogging of the arteries of the heart much more common in patients with this disease.

The exact way in which this occurs is not known, but from a cardiologist we know that the clogging of blood vessels with cholesterol plaques seems to be dependent on inflammation, and this inflammation is obviously a cornerstone of the problems that rheumatoid arthritis patients have. And so it seems that the combination of chronic inflammation makes rheumatoid arthritis patients much more susceptible to traditional heart disease or coronary artery disease, and many rheumatologists now believe that treating patients prophylactically with cholesterol-lowering medications and an aspirin daily is a wise choice to hopefully prevent or reduce the impact of this disease on the heart.

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