Four Official Facts About Smoking and Autoimmune Disease
The new Surgeon General's report 50 years after the original on smoking has four definitive statements about its effect on autoimmune disorders.
Cigarette smoke has immune-activating and immune-suppressive effects.
Cigarette smoking contributes to rheumatoid arthritis.
Cigarette smoking reduces the effectiveness of TNF-α inhibitors.
Evidence is inadequate to infer a relationship between smoking and lupus.
Fifty years after the US Surgeon General declared smoking a health hazard, a new report by a different Surgeon General reviews what has been learned since.
Chapter 10 of The Health Consequences of Smoking-50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General, 2014 considers the evidence on cigarette smoking and autoimmune disease.
Here's what we know today, as certified by one of the nation's most authoritative official sources of medical information:
