Asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Subsequent Risk for Incident Rheumatoid Arthritis Among Women: A Prospective Cohort Study

Objective Inflamed airways are hypothesized to contribute to rheumatoid arthritis ( RA ) pathogenesis due to RA ‐related autoantibody production, and smoking is the strongest environmental RA risk factor. However, the role of chronic airway diseases in RA development is unclear. We undertook this study to investigate whether asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD ) were each associated with RA . Methods We performed a...