We all know for sure that smoking is a dangerous and often a fatal habit. Around 1950 they believed that a cigarette is good for the heart, luckily they are now resigned to the history books and acknowledged as a fallacy. Smoking for sure increases the risk of gum disease, heart attacks, strokes, lung and respiratory disorders and of course all kinds of cancer, both inside and outside the body.
But now, scientists also believe that smoking is potentially linked to arthritis. Brigham and Women’s Hospital have conducted a study over several years; from a pool of over 200,000 patients, 1528 developed rheumatoid arthritis, with 969 suffering from seropositive arthritis; one of the most severe forms of the disease. Seropositive arthritis sufferers generally have more painful and varied manifestations of the disease.
In female test subjects, those who quit smoking began to enjoy a reduced risk of rheumatoid arthritis, with the lowered risk remaining in place as long as they continued smoking cessation. After 30 years, overall risk was reduced by 37%. There is no known reason for this (although it is hardly surprising that stopping smoking reduces the risk of yet one more disease!) However, the scientists believe that smoking is thought to cause the release of specific antibodies, many of which are found in arthritis sufferers. In short, the body is kicking into action and trying to defend itself in the same way that an arthritis sufferer’s body does. The results are only preliminary but are enough to spur the research to now include males as well as active smokers. It really should be remembered that smoking is, in effect, an attack on the body.
Cancers are a direct response to cellular mutations, poor skin is the body’s attempt to expel toxins, and now, it would appear, smoking could potentially cause our bodies to fight back on a level that gives way to chronic diseases. We all knew that smoking was bad before, but this is just another in a long list of known negative side effects.
