MARINA DEL REY, CALIF. — Rheumatoid arthritis patients with well-controlled disease may benefit from performing fat-burning exercises accompanied by resistance training—such as weight lifting—to preserve or even build muscle mass, according to Dr. Joan M. Bathon.
A seemingly fit patient with well-controlled rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and a normal body mass index may still have excess body fat, elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, and increased coronary artery disease risk, said Dr. Bathon, professor of medicine and director of the Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center in Baltimore.
RA's chronic inflammation can waste muscles, she explained at a rheumatology seminar sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles. Appendicular fat correlates with disability, and visceral fat correlates with coronary artery disease, she said. When patients have well-controlled RA, their high CRP levels might be coming not from the inflamed joints, but rather from fat deposits, and might signal an increased risk of coronary artery disease.
Dr. Bathon and her colleagues performed anthropomorphic measurements and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scanning to assess fat:muscle ratio in 72 men and 117 women with RA and moderate disability. A single CT image of the abdomen in the axial plane was used to assess the amount of visceral fat.
Women with RA and BMIs below 25 kg/m
Disclosures: Dr. Bathon said she had no relevant disclosures.
A seemingly fit RA patient with a normal body mass index may have a number of heart disease risk factors.
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