NEW YORK, Jul 26 (Reuters Health) - People who drink many cups of coffee
every day appear to be at a higher risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis,
according to a study conducted in Finland.
Those who drank four or more cups of coffee a day had twice the risk of
developing rheumatoid arthritis, compared with people who drank less coffee.
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease in which the body's defenses
attack its own tissues. It is more common in women, tends to strike between the
ages of 36 and 50, and results in a chronic destruction and deformity of the
joints. Smoking, high cholesterol, being overweight and certain dietary factors
have also been linked with a higher risk of the disease, according to the report
in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Dr. Maarku Heliovaara of the National Public health Institute in Helsinki
and colleagues looked at data from nearly 19,000 healthy men and women who
entered a study in the early 1970s and were followed for 15 years.
In that time, 126 people developed rheumatoid arthritis and 89 of those
people had detectable levels of rheumatoid factor--an antibody that is often
found in the blood years before the onset of rheumatoid arthritis.
Coffee drinkers were at higher risk of developing rheumatoid
factor-associated rheumatoid arthritis.
The results "should be viewed as the first step in support of the hypothesis
that coffee consumption has a causative role in the development of rheumatoid
factor positive rheumatoid arthritis," the researchers write. It is not clear
why coffee might be associated with rheumatoid factor.
Most people in the current study drank boiled coffee, a practice no longer
common in Finland. It is possible that some ingredient in coffee that is
associated with rheumatoid factor is removed by the filtration, according to the
researchers.
"In Finland, more than three quarters of coffee consumers have switched from
boiled coffee to filtered coffee since the 1970s," according to the report. "The
type of coffee consumed should therefore be considered in further studies on the
relation between coffee and rheumatoid arthritis," the researchers write.
Currently rheumatoid arthritis affects more than two million people in the
US, according to the American College of Rheumatology.
