Smoking and salty foods may both contribute to rheumatoid arthritis. Smoking is a long-known risk factor for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a debilitating and painful degenerative joint disease that affects more than a million Americans. But a new study has found that the amount of salt a person consumes may play a role, too. “Researchers set out to see if a salty diet might be linked to the onset of RA, but found a connection only among smokers–who were more than twice as likely as anyone with a low-salt diet to develop the condition.” They found that those smokers with the lowest salt consumption had similar rates of RA to nonsmokers. “More research is also needed to identify the biological pathways through which sodium intake can affect smoking as a risk factor. The study provides the first evidence in rheumatoid arthritis that sodium intake may influence risk for onset of the disease.”

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