Amyloidosis: Who is at Risk?

Amyloidosis is a secondary complication of arthritis and it is one that needs to be diagnosed and treated, because it can cause damage in the body’s organs. This condition is one that has proven to be hereditary, but it can also affect people in higher risk groups that have certain types of arthritis and people that have certain medical conditions.
People with rheumatoid arthritis and are over the age of forty are at risk for this disease and in cases of severe rheumatoid arthritis the risk goes up to fifteen percent over any other cause to be afflicted with amyloidosis. The inflammation that is associated with rheumatoid arthritis can be the opening that this disease needs to attack the antibodies made in the body and carried in the bloodstream. This can put organs like the liver, heart, kidneys and the spleen at risk for being damaged.

Another group of people that are at a high risk for amyloidosis are people with kidney disease or kidney failure, this is because their bodies are not able to excrete all the toxins in the body properly and this can mean weakness in the immunity system to fight off this disease. Dialysis is the methods used with kidney failure to clean the body of toxins, however it does not clean all of the proteins out of the body, which leaves an opening for amyloidosis to begin attacking the body.

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