Stress is a fact of life for everyone. But for people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), keeping your stress level as low as possible is an important goal for controlling disease.
That’s because stress is known to worsen autoimmune diseases like RA. “Mental or emotional stress has been shown to trigger disease relapses. And stress increases blood levels of inflammatory mediators that directly contribute to pain, swelling, and tissue damage,” says Richard Bucala, MD, PhD, rheumatologist in chief at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. He notes that since treatment aims to reduce these mediators, stress can actually impact the effectiveness of prescribed drugs.
Of course, it’s a vicious cycle, because having a serious disease can itself produce its own level of stress.
The role of this important factor in rheumatoid arthritis was discussed in three panels presented in June at the virtual congress of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR).
Here are the important lessons everyone can take away from these panels.