The Relationship between Cardiovascular Disease and Inflammatory Arthritis, and the Potential Role of Exercise on the Burden of Illness: a Scoping Review

Abstract

Inflammatory arthritis has been identified as a source of increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and patients with inflammatory arthritis face higher mortality compared to the general population. Hence, patients with inflammatory arthritis may require management of CVD that is different from the general population. Exercise has been described as a primary strategy for CVD risk management in the general population. However, it is unclear whether the presence of inflammatory arthritis and CVD risk factors requires different approaches to CVD risk management and in which aspects risk is changed (clinical or physiological). We conducted a scoping review of the literature to determine the association between inflammatory arthritis and CVD risk factors including prevention and treatment; specifically exercise treatment. Medical literature extracted using the databases SPORTDiscus, SCOPUS, and PUBMED, to determine the effect of exercise on the relationship between inflammatory arthritis and CVD was sought. We found 64 articles with relevant abstracts of studies and followed that by independent review by 2 reviewers. The majority of studies were excluded if the abstracts addressed an irrelevant study population, addressed only one of cardiovascular disease or inflammatory arthritis in isolation, did not provide a study design, or were lacking a complete abstract.