The Link between Rheumatoid Arthritis and Diabetes Ann Arbor MI
The Link between Rheumatoid Arthritis and Diabetes
As if rheumatoid arthritis isn't enough of a life changing diagnosis to cope with, now it appears that RA sufferers may be at an increased risk for developing diabetes as well.
Although, the connection between rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes is unclear at this point, but research suggests that it's real.
"There are tantalizing links between the two diseases," says Harvard Medical School professor of medicine and Brigham and Women's Hospital rheumatologist Dr. Daniel Solomon. "But at this point they are mainly speculative."
Both diabetes and RA are autoimmune conditions in which a person's own immune system goes on the attack against the body itself.
"When you have an autoimmune condition, your antibodies are actually attacking your own body," explains Dr. Susan Spratt, an endocrinologist at Duke University. "And when you have one autoimmune disease, like RA, you're at risk for getting another one such as type 1 diabetes."
Rheumatoid arthritis attacks the body's joints and causes ongoing inflammation. It's theorized that this inflammation may be connected to insulin resistance, which puts people at risk for developing type 2 diabetes, too. People with RA are more likely to have insulin resistance, in which the body does not respond to insulin the way it should.
Inflammation may not be the only culprit. Medications used to treat rheumatoid arthritis may also bump up a patient's risk of diabetes. Steroids such as prednisone can not only cause weight gain but high blood sugar levels as well, according to Dr. S. Sethu Reddy, endocrinologist and author of The Cleveland Clinic Guide to Diabetes...
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