title: Rheumatoid Arthritis Was Negatively Associated with Alzheimer's Disease: A Population-Based Case-Control Study.
abstract: Some of the prior literature investigated the potential association between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) because these two diseases may share similar inflammatory mechanisms. Nevertheless, to date, findings of the previous literature are still controversial, and some methodological limitations were observed in those studies. The aim of this case-control study was to investigate the relationship between prior RA and AD using a large population-based dataset. This study used the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005. We included 2271 patients with AD who had received prescriptions for acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) as cases and 6813 patients without AD as controls in this study. In addition, we performed a conditional logistic regression to examine the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for prior RA between cases and controls. The study found that 330 (3.63%) of the total sampled patients had an RA diagnosis before the index date. Additionally, prior RA was found in 60 (2.64%) cases and in 270 (3.96%) controls. The conditional logistic regression analysis showed that the crude OR of prior RA for cases was 0.66 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.49~0.87) compared to controls. After adjusting for patients' geographic location, urbanization level, and comorbidities, the adjusted OR of prior RA for patients with AD was 0.73 (95% CI: 0.55~0.98) compared to those without AD. We concluded that there was an inverse association between prior RA and AD even after adjusting for potential confounders.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Life Science, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.|Research Center of Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Li-Ting
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Kao
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Jiunn-Horng
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.|Department of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Herng-Ching
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chung-Chien
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.|Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Medical University-Shuang-Ho Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.|Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University.
authors.forename: Hsin-Chien
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.|Department of Surgery, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, Ban Ciao, Taipei, Taiwan.|Graduate Program in Biomedical Informatics, College of Informatics, Yuan-Ze University, Chung-Li, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Shiu-Dong
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Chung
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002800:Cholinesterase Inhibitors / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D002800:Cholinesterase Inhibitors