The protective effect of alcohol on developing rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Our aim was to establish whether alcohol protects against RA development and to determine whether this effect is influenced by alcohol dose, duration and serological status through systematically reviewing the literature and undertaking a meta-analysis.


We searched Medline/EMBASE (1946 to July 2012) using the terms rheumatoid arthritis.mp or arthritis, rheumatoid/ and