Research
Hormonal
Obesity negatively impacts the response to therapy in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), reducing the likelihood of achieving sustained remission with both conventional and biologic agents.
If you have Rheumatoid Arthritis and are obese, your current medications (including biologics) may be less effective at putting your disease into remission. This is due to biological factors like adipokines and inflammation. Discussing weight management alongside your RA treatment plan may improve your chances of achieving remission.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Obese RA patients are indeed less likely to achieve sustained remission in response to therapy with conventional chemical (4) or biologic (TNF-α inhibitors) agents (67).
Why this rating
Cites multiple studies showing consistent negative impact of obesity on RA treatment outcomes.
Source
Aging, Obesity, and Inflammatory Age-Related Diseases
Daniela Frasca et al. · Frontiers in Immunology · 2017
DOI 10.3389/fimmu.2017.01745
narrative_reviewCited 364×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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- Obesity superimposed on aging exacerbates chronic low-grade inflammation (inflammaging), which drives insulin resistance and increases the risk of age-related diseases such as type-2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cognitive impairment.Good
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