On Weather and Humidity and RA

July 17, 2005

Hi All,

This is some of the research I was telling you about yesterday. This article is

small enough to cut and paste:

1: J Rheumatol. 2004 Jul;31(7):1327-34. Related Articles, Links

Weather effects in rheumatoid arthritis: from controversy to consensus. A

review.

Patberg WR, Rasker JJ.

Department of Medical Physiology, University of Groningen, PO Box 196,

9700 AD Groningen, The Netherlands. w.r.patberg@...

OBJECTIVE: To review and evaluate the evidence for the widespread view

that signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are influenced, or even

caused, by the weather.

METHODS: A literature search from 1985 to April 2003 was performed using

the PubMed database of the US National Library of Medicine. Additional

relevant articles were identified from the bibliographies, and from our own

archives. Methods and findings of the studies were critically reviewed.

RESULTS: Only temperature and humidity appear to have clear influences on

the symptoms of RA, although the reported findings do not agree. In many

cases, the apparent controversies can be explained by the intimate

relationship between temperature and humidity, and by taking local

circumstances into account. The differences in the methods applied in studies

on effects of weather on RA strongly hampered our evaluation.

CONCLUSION: RA variables are positively correlated with the humidity of the

microclimate at the patient's skin. High outdoor relative humidity is

unfavorable, but has less influence when there are few barriers for water

vapor, like clothes, and when air conditioning is used. High temperature is

unfavorable since it increases absolute humidity, but beneficial as well, since

it reduces the presence of barriers, and stimulates the use of air conditioning.

The classic opinion, " Cold and wet is bad, warm and dry is good for RA

patients, " seems to be true only as far as humidity is concerned.

Publication Types:

* Review

* Review, Tutorial

PMID: 15229951 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display Show

Write to the Help Desk

NCBI | NLM | NIH

Department of Health & Human Services

Privacy Statement | Freedom of Information Act | Disclaimer

Recommended Posts