Daling are the authors of “Smoking, Obesity, Alcohol Consumption, and the Risk of Rheumatoid
Arthritis.” Due to a substantial amount of study regarding sex hormones contributing to the
effects of rheumatoid arthritis they “…conducted a population-based case-control study…in
King County, WA, and Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound” (Voigt 525).
According to the acknowledgements section the physicians, as well as the
rheumatologists of King County, WA and the Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound helped
to make the research possible. A few key individuals was mentioned for assisting with the
research they are: Diane Setterholm, Hean Whitt, Jude …show more content…
Therefore, they “…conducted
personal interviews to collect data on weight, smoking, alcohol history, reproductive variables,
and other demographic variables” (Voigt 525).
Due to shreds of evidence linking sex hormones causing rheumatoid arthritis, the only
information exhibiting an increase in sex hormones is obesity, large consumption of smoking and alcoholic beverages, but even this is vague. Apart from knowing what rheumatoid arthritis is, no one really knows for sure what the leading causes are. To have a better understanding of
rheumatoid arthritis it is a disease causing homeostatic imbalances of joints. When a person is
condemned to having rheumatoid arthritis the joints become very stiff, occurring especially
among the joints of fingers, wrists, ankles, as well as feet. “Along with pain and swelling, its
manifestations may include anemia, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, and cardiovascular
problems” (Marieb 239), this disease an autoimmune disease, where the immune system …show more content…
Firstly, “They attempted to identify all women age 18-64 years diagnosed with RA between November 1986 and February 1991 who were residents of King County, WA or who were enrolled in Group Health Cooperative…” (Voigt 526). The study only considered patients whose diagnosis are: probable, well defined, or classical; therefore “…349 of the 407 cases examined were found to be eligible” (Voigt 526). Unfortunately, due to the discrepancy “…the remainder of King County was probably less complete, as the number of cases from Group Health relative to the enrollment of the cooperative was disproportionately higher than that of the remainder of the county” (Voigt 526). They resorted to using random digit dialing, “Screening for eligibility was successfully completed for 96% of the households contacted by random digit dialing, and 79% of those eligible agreed to be interviewed” (Voigt 526). After doing the King County controls, “[They] selected controls from Group Health Cooperative by random sampling of the enrollment files, and 78% …agreed to participate” (Voigt 526). The interview conducted among the patients being studied comprises of “… contraceptive and noncontraceptive hormone use, weight, alcohol consumption, and tobacco