“No one is following their cholesterol profiles or advising them about smoking and weight loss, so it's really incumbent on us to make sure these issues are addressed in this patient population. This is a really significant intervention we can make, maybe even more important in some cases than treating their joint and skin disease,” Dr. Ritchlin said.
Dr. Ritchlin disclosed that he has received grant research support from Centocor Inc. and is a consultant to Abbott Laboratories, Amgen Inc., and Wyeth. SDEF and this newspaper are owned by Elsevier.
'It's not that we know these [traditional] drugs don't work—the studies simply haven't been done.' DR. RITCHLIN