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" More than a third of severe cases of rheumatoid arthritis appear to be linked to smoking, a study has found. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden studied more than 1,200 people with rheumatoid arthritis, as well as a further 871 disease-free volunteers. More than three-fifths (61 per cent) of those with rheumatoid arthritis were found to have the most severe form of the disease and the researchers discovered that those who had smoked 20 cigarettes a day for at least 20 years were more than 2.5 times more likely to have this type than non-smokers. Writing in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, the study authors claimed that one in five cases of rheumatoid arthritis - and 35 per cent of severe cases - could be attributed to smoking. In addition, smoking counted for more than half of cases of rheumatoid arthritis in patients with a genetic predisposition to the disease. The research follows a recent study in the journal Arthritis &amp;amp;amp; Rheumatism, which found that cigarette smoking was associated with an increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis in African Americans. Scientists at the University of Nebraska discovered that 54 per cent of rheumatoid arthritis patients in their African American study group were heavy smokers. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/healthy-living/news/a20386/smoking-blamed-for-one-in-three-severe-rheumatoid-arthritis-cases/>