Atherosclerosis in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients may be aggravated by obesity.
To study the nutritional status of patients with RA.
Observational cross sectional study of 102 RA. Patients were studied for clinical, demographic, serologic, activity and nutritional profile. In the latter we included: measurement of body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio; bicipital skinfold (BSF) and their adequacy; triceps skinfold measure (TSF) and its adequacy and arm muscle circumference (AMC) and its adequacy. Association studies of nominal data were done using Fisher and chi-square tests and the Mann Whitney and unpaired Student t tests for numerical data. For correlation calculations the Spearman test was used.
In the sample there were 14/102 men, 88/102 women with mean age of 52.1 ± 11.5 years and mean disease duration of 10.6 ± 7.47 years. The mean waist-hip ratio was 0.92 ± 0.07. According to BMI 30.3% had normal weight and 65.5% a total weight above normal. According to BSF, 74.5% were normal and 25.5% had depletion of muscular mass; according to TSF, 83.3% were normal and 16.7% depleted. Association of nutritional variables with gender, rheumatoid factor, age, nodules, and disease activity showed no differences (p = NS) except for a lower waist/hip ratio in individuals with nodules (p = 0.02) and a modest correlation of TSF with disease duration (p = 0.02; R = 0.22; 95% CI = 0.01 to 0.40).
We found a high prevalence of overweight and obesity in patients with RA and a small frequency of muscle depletion.