Patients with rheumatoid arthritis have increased *** resistance

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have elevated insulin resistance (IR), but elevated insulin resistance in these patients is not associated with an increased risk of atherosclerosis, and studies have been published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Columbia University Jon T. Giles, MD and colleagues compared the IR status between 95 RA patients and a statistically matched 98 non-RA control group, using the HOMA insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) index to evaluate the degree of insulin resistance, HOMA-IR, the homeostasis model of insulin resistance. index.

The researchers found that the average HOMA-IR level was 31% higher in the RA group. In the control group, HOMA-IR was associated with C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 levels, but this association was weaker in the RA group. .

In those patients with rheumatoid arthritis, elevated HOMA-IR was associated with positive rheumatoid factor in both men and women and was associated with whether women used prednisone. During an average of 3.2 years of follow-up, neither baseline nor mean HOMA-IR was associated with an increased risk of atherosclerosis among RA patients. Although the IR of RA is higher than that of non-RA, higher levels of IR may not increase the risk of atherosclerosis alone.