Other potential confounding characteristics in this context comprise alcohol use, changes in weight on methotrexate, age, gender, use of glucocorticoids, minocyclin, sulphasalazine and azathioprine, systemic inflammation as reflected by C-reactive protein concentrations and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and hypothyroidism [20,33-37]. This evidence concerns the gene CRP and hypothyroidism.