Study: Women With Rheumatoid Arthritis Need Fewer Calories

Women with rheumatoid arthritis have lower caloric needs than healthy women due to their lowered physical activity and should manage their food intake accordingly, according to researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.

Rheumatoid arthritis causes cachexia, a metabolic response causing loss of muscle mass and a higher resting use of calories. However, the amount of calories used in physical activity by patients with rheumatoid arthritis is lower than in healthy women.

Researchers have been unsure which effect is stronger in regulating total calorie usage and thus whether dietary calorie requirements of patients with rheumatoid arthritis are higher or lower than those of healthy women.

Researchers conducted a study of 20 women with rheumatoid arthritis and 20 healthy women who were matched for age and body mass index to serve as the control group. The study's objective was to determine the total calorie expenditure in women with rheumatoid arthritis.

The average total calorie expenditure was lower in the patients with rheumatoid arthritis than in the control group. Fewer calories were used in physical activity of the patients with rheumatoid arthritis than in the control group, which accounted for 77 percent of the difference in total caloric expenditure between the two groups. The physical activity level of the patients also tended to be lower than that of the controls.

A low physical activity level is the main cause of lower-than-normal total calorie expenditure, the researchers concluded..

Other sources: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition