Association of weight loss with improved disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A retrospective analysis using electronic medical record data.

Objective: To evaluate the association between weight loss and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease activity.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of RA patients seen at routine clinic visits at an academic medical center, 2012-2015. We included patients who had ≥2 clinical disease activity index (CDAI) measures.

Weight Change During the Early Rheumatoid Arthritis Period and Risk of Subsequent Mortality in Women With Rheumatoid Arthritis and Matched Comparators.

Objective: To investigate whether weight change during the early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) period is associated with subsequent mortality and to evaluate whether there is an RA-specific effect.

Methods: We identified patients with incident RA during the Nurses' Health Study (NHS; 1976-2016) and created a comparison cohort by matching each RA patient with up to 10 non-RA comparators by age and calendar year of the RA diagnosis (index date). To capture weight change around the early RA period ("peri-RA/index"), we used weight measurements collected 2-4 years before and 2-4 years after the index date.