ReviewTherapeutic advances in musculoskeletal disease2021
Body composition in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a narrative literature review.
Review in Therapeutic advances in musculoskeletal disease, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of biologic and target synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs on sarcopenia in spondyloarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical rheumatology · 2023Pooled it
- Trial
- Ultrasound viscoelasticity and attenuation imaging for rheumatoid arthritis-associated muscle quality changes: a clinical transcriptomic study.Clinical rheumatology · 2026Article
- Complement Activation by Post-Translationally Modified Proteins: Links to Chronic Inflammation and Autoimmunity.Immunological reviews · 2026Review
- Prevalence of sarcopenia in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional study.RMD open · 2026Article
- Associations between anthropometric and body composition indices with subclinical arterial damage in chronic inflammatory diseases.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Article
- Long-term dynamic of muscle mass and its effectors in female patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a 5-year prospective cohort study.Therapeutic advances in musculoskeletal disease · 2026Article
- Postural imbalance in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional study.Revista da Associacao Medica Brasileira (1992) · 2026Article
- Transcending aging: disease specificity, assessment challenges, and management strategies for rheumatoid arthritis-related sarcopenia.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists in arthritis: current insights and future directions.Nature reviews. Rheumatology · 2025Review
- Metabolic Consequences of Rheumatoid Arthritis.Arthritis care & research · 2025Review
- Longitudinal Assessment of Body Composition and Inflammatory Status in Rheumatoid Arthritis During TNF Inhibitor Treatment: A Pilot Study.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Observational
- Eccentric Exercise Guidelines for Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis: Findings From a Randomized Controlled Trial.Health science reports · 2025Article
- The non-linear relationships between fat mass and lean body mass with arthritis.Lipids in health and disease · 2025Article
- The Characteristic of Muscle Function for Sarcopenia in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Large-Scale Real-World Cross-Sectional Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Article
- Beyond joints: the importance of animal models in exploring rheumatoid arthritis comorbidities.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Review
- Prevalence and Factors Associated with Sarcopenia in Post-Menopausal Women with Rheumatoid Arthritis.Mediterranean journal of rheumatology · 2024Article
- Drug-related sarcopenia as a secondary sarcopenia.Geriatrics & gerontology international · 2024Review
- Effect of Filgotinib on Body Mass Index (BMI) and Effect of Baseline BMI on the Efficacy and Safety of Filgotinib in Rheumatoid Arthritis.Rheumatology and therapy · 2023Article
- Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is growing interest in the alterations in body composition (BC) that accompany rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The purpose of this review is to (i) investigate how BC is currently measured in RA patients, (ii) describe alterations in body composition in RA patients and (iii) evaluate the effect on nutrition, physical training, and treatments; that is, corticosteroids and biologic Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Disease (bDMARDs), on BC in RA patients. The primary-source literature for this review was acquired using PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane database searches for articles published up to March 2021. The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms used were 'Arthritis, Rheumatoid', 'body composition', 'sarcopenia', 'obesity', 'cachexia', 'Absorptiometry, Photon' and 'Electric Impedance'. The titles and abstracts of all articles were reviewed for relevant subjects. Whole-BC measurements were usually performed using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) to quantify lean- and fat-mass parameters. In RA patients, lean mass is lower and adiposity is higher than in healthy controls, both in men and women. The prevalence of abnormal BC conditions such as overfat, sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity is significantly higher in RA patients than in healthy controls; these alterations in BC are observed even at an early stage of the disease. Data on the effect treatments on BC in RA patients are scarce. In the few studies published, (a) creatine supplementation and progressive resistance training induce a slight and temporary increase in lean mass, (b) exposure to corticosteroids induces a gain in fat mass and (c) tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) inhibitors might be associated with a gain in fat mass, while tocilizumab might be associated with a gain in lean mass. The available data clearly demonstrate that alterations in BC occur in RA patients, but data on the effect of treatments, especially bDMARDs, are inconsistent and further studies are needed in this area.
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Registered trials
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