Myocardial infarction (MI) risk was consistently increased in multiple types of arthritis in population-based studies, and was partially explained by a higher prevalence of traditional risk factors in all types of arthritis, according to a recent study. A medical literature search was performed for population-based cohort or case-control studies published between January 1980 and January 2015, with a measure of effect and variance for associations between incident MI and 5 major types of arthritis: rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), gout or osteoarthritis (OA), adjusted for at least age and sex. Researchers found:

• A total of 4,285 articles were identified; 27 met review criteria and 25 met criteria for meta-analyses.
• In studies adjusting for age and sex, MI risk was significantly increased in RA, gout, PsA, and OA and tended towards increased risk in AS.
• Traditional risk factors were more prevalent in all types of arthritis.