Rheumatoid Arthritis and Heart Disease: 28 Ways You Can Lower Your Risk
People with rheumatoid arthritis have nearly a 50 percent greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease. But there’s a lot you can do in your daily life to protect your heart and stay healthy. for more information on this topic.
While that’s clearly bad news, a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis does not mean you’re doomed to have heart problems. You are not powerless. In fact, there are many steps you can take to protect your heart and blood vessels.
In honor of American Heart Month this February, here are 28 things you can do to lower your risk of heart disease if you have rheumatoid arthritis.
RA disease activity assessment
Keeping your rheumatoid arthritis well-controlled is one of the best things you can do for your joints and your heart. According to a study published in the journal
Arthritis & Rheumatology, people whose RA was in remission were 53 percent less likely to experience a serious cardiovascular event during the study’s three-year follow-up period.
Your rheumatologist should be assessing your RA disease activity at least once a year using a scoring tool that is approved by the American College of Rheumatology. There are many different ways to measure RA disease activity, but each involves different combinations of assessing factors like counts of painful and swollen joints, blood tests for inflammatory markers, and patients’ and physicians’ reports of pain and function in everyday life. They include: