Women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are at increased risk for hypothyroidism and its attendant cardiovascular complications, research suggests.
The study was undertaken by a team in The Netherlands who hypothesized that RA would be associated with other disorders with autoimmune components, such as hypothyroidism and atherosclerosis.
The researchers identified 358 RA patients who were participating in a separate prospective cohort study and classified them according to their thyroid status. Hyperthyroid individuals were excluded from the study.
Of the remainder, female RA patients were significantly more likely to have clinical hypothyroidism (6.8%) compared with males (2.7%) and compared with the general Dutch female population (2.5%).
Conversely, female RA patients were much less likely than males and the general population to be euthyroid.
In addition, female RA patients with clinically manifest hypothyroidism were significantly more likely to have cardiovascular disease than were euthyroid RA patients (37.5% vs 13.0%).
The association between hypothyroidism and cardiovascular disease in females remained strong and significant even after adjustment for multiple confounders, including traditional vascular risk factors, at an odds ratio of 4.6.
"This might indicate a synergistic detrimental effect of RA as well as hypothyroidism for the development of cardiovascular disease," write M Nurmohamed (VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and study authors in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
"Hence, we should be aware of this amplified cardiovascular risk in hypothyroid female RA patients and consider screening for hypothyroidism in female RA patients."
I am sticking to my theory that our thyroid is our canary. Thanks Lynn and Pip, I always appreciate anything that is related to our common disease.
I have thyroid disease. I take synthroid. This is very interesting. I wonder how many people on this board have thyroid disease.I don't have any issues with my thyroid.......... I have thyroid inflammation, but my TSH is normal, so it's either early or I have a pituitary problem. My endocrinologist was waiting for a while to see if was put on Enbrel because he had a theory that the two inflammatory processes were related.been tested.. indicators say I "should" but I don't....... I was recently tested for thyroid problems, I guess because of the heart issues from RA is what they are saying at the moment. They are running tests for mixed connective tissue disease as well and also think maybe the kidney issues are causing the heart problems. but the thyroid tests were negative. thank God, I will take any amount of good news I can get.. I have been hypothyroid for about ten years now, I take levothyroxine. I use to take synthroid and then went to Levoxyl, now I take the generic. I would like to know if there is a link between hypothyroidism and RA too. I will ask my rhemmy next week.