Ford JA, Liu X, Chu SH, et al. - A prospective cohort study was conducted to evaluate whether asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were correlated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Researchers carried out a prospective cohort study including a total of 205,153 women in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS, 1988-2014) and NHSII (1991-2015). They calculated multivariable hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for RA applying Cox regression. In this study, 15,148 women were distinguished with confirmed asthma, 3,573 with confirmed COPD, and 1,060 incident RA cases during 4,384,471 person-years of follow-up in NHS and NHSII. The study found that asthma and COPD were each correlated with raised risk for incident RA, independent of smoking status/intensity and other potential confounders. These outcomes give support for the hypothesis that chronic airway inflammation may be crucial in RA pathogenesis.