Mar 26, 2014 05:43 PM EDT By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

The offspring of parents who were addicted to drugs or alcohol are more likely to have arthritis, according to a recent study.

Researchers from the University of Toronto found that adults who had at least one parent whose drug or alcohol use caused problems while under the age of 18 and still living at home are 58 percent more likely to have arthritis, according to a press release.

"We had anticipated that the adult offspring's health behaviors such as smoking, obesity and alcohol consumption might explain the strong link between parental addictions and arthritis, however we did not find this to be the case," Jessica Liddycoat, study co-author, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers examined more than 13,000 adults.  Twenty percent of the study participants had been diagnosed with arthritis by a medical professional, and 14.5 percent of the participants reported having at least one parent with a drug or alcohol addiction.

After further analysis, investigators found that individuals whose parents were addicted to drugs or alcohol are more likely to have arthritis.  After adjusting for age, sex, and race, parental addictions were associated with 58 per cent higher odds of arthritis, according to lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson.

"Even after adjusting for these adult health behaviors, as well as income, education, a history of childhood maltreatment and mood and anxiety disorders, we found that parental addictions was still a statistically significant factor associated with 30 per cent higher odds of arthritis" Liddycoat said.

Researchers said future prospective studies are needed because the survey nature of the data makes it impossible to determine whether the relationship between parental addictions and arthritis is causal.

"However, there is ample evidence from other studies to support the provision of efficacious interventions to treat addictions." researcher Maria Stefanyk said in a statement. "Although we do not know if these interventions will impact the development of arthritis in adulthood, we do know that children do much better on a wide range of outcomes when parents are no longer abusing drugs and alcohol."

The findings were recently published in the International Journal of Population Research.

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