Association between smoking and gout: a meta-analysis

Previous studies showed that smoking is linked with the decreased risk of gout, but the results remain controversial. The aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the associations between smoking and the risk of gout. A systematic literature search of PubMed and EMBASE was conducted. Data were extracted by two independent reviewers. The pooled odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to assess the strength of associations, using random effects and fixed effects models. Five studies with a total of 17,915,507 participants with 16,880 gouts were enrolled. Heterogeneity among the effect sizes of five studies was reported as I² = 87.9%. Our meta-analysis indicated that smoking (ever- vs non-, OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.67–1.12) was not associated with the risk of gout in random effects model, whereas there was an association between smoking (ever- vs non-, OR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.65–0.74) and gout risk in fixed effects model. Our finding indicates that smoking may not be involved in the risk of gout. However, further studies are still needed to confirm our results.